Freedom of information
The Freedom of Information Act 2000 gives the public a right of access to information held by public authorities. Compliance with the Freedom of Information Act is overseen by the Information Commissioner’s Office which has recently updated their recommendation on what information organisations should make available. VisitBritain has adopted the model publication scheme issued by the Information Commissioner in January 2009. If the information you require is not held within our Publication Scheme you can contact us in writing and request the information.
The "About Us" section on our website contains information about VisitBritain as an organisation including our roles and responsibilities, organisational structure and our Board. In general, VisitBritain does not charge for the information included within its Publication Scheme and any charges are stated. For copies of information covered by the Publication Scheme but not available on our website or if you wish to comment or complain about our Publication Scheme please let us know through our contact us pages on the website.
Terms and conditions
Access to and use of this site is provided by VisitBritain* subject to the following Terms and Conditions as amended from time to time:
• Whilst VisitBritain endeavours to ensure that the information on this site is correct, no warranty, express or implied, is given as to its accuracy and VisitBritain does not accept any liability for error or omission
• VisitBritain shall not be liable for any damages (including, without limitation, damages for loss of business or loss of profits) arising in contract, tort or otherwise from the use of or inability to use this site, or any material contained in it, or from any action or decision taken as a result of using this site or any such material
• VisitBritain accepts no responsibility for the content of any site to which a hypertext link from this site exists. Such links are provided for your convenience on an "as is" basis with no warranty, express or implied, for the information provided within them
• If any of these terms should be determined to be illegal, invalid or otherwise unenforceable by reason of the laws of any state or country in which these terms are intended to be effective, then to the extent and within the jurisdiction in which that term is illegal, invalid or enforceable, it shall be severed and deleted from the clause concerned and the remaining terms and conditions shall survive, remain in full force and effect and continue to be binding and enforceable
• By accessing any part of this site, you should be deemed to have accepted these Terms in full
• These Terms shall be governed by and construed in accordance with English law
* A statutory body incorporated under The Development of Tourism Act 1969 as the British Tourist Authority.
Copyright notice
Unless otherwise stated, the copyright and any other rights in all material on this site are owned by VisitBritain, a statutory body incorporated under The Development of Tourism Act 1969 as the British Tourist Authority. You are permitted to print and download extracts from this site on the following conditions:
a. Use of documents and related graphics on this site is for information and/or personal, non-commercial use only;
b. Any copies of these pages saved on to disk or to any other storage medium may only be used for subsequent viewing purposes or to print extracts for personal, non-commercial use;
c. No documents or related graphics on this site are to be modified in any way;
d. Graphics on this site are not to be used separately from the accompanying text;
e. VisitBritain copyright notice (© British Tourist Authority 2003) must appear in all copies;
f. No part of this site may be reproduced or stored in any other website without VisitBritain’s prior written consent.
Privacy and cookie policy
VisitBritain is committed to protecting your privacy as a user of our websites and the confidentiality of any personal information that you may provide us with during your visit to the sites. VisitBritain abides by the Data Protection Act of 1998 and complies with its provisions to ensure that any data you provide is treated accordingly. Information is gathered automatically by the web server, through the use of cookies on the Site, and also from your interaction through online requests for information as well as the submission of online forms.
General information that is collected by the web server and which does not require any input on your part, apart from to log on to the Site, is data such as:
• type of browser
• operating system
• IP address
• domain name
Cookies and you
When we provide services, we want to make them easy, useful and reliable. Where services are delivered on the internet, this sometimes involves placing small amounts of information on your device, for example, computer or mobile phone. These include small files known as cookies. They cannot be used to identify you personally.
What are cookies?
These pieces of information are used to improve services for you through, for example:
• enabling a service to recognise your device so you don't have to give the same information several times during one task
• recognising that you may already have been given a username and password so you don't need to do it for every web page requested
• measuring how many people are using services, so they can be made easier to use and to ensure there is enough capacity for a fast service
• analysing anonymised data to help VisitBritain understand how people interact with us so we can make them better
First-party cookies (cookies set by VisitBritain)
These are cookies set by VisitBritain’s web domain known as 'first-party' cookies. Some are necessary to the functionality of the site, others provide information to us that we analyse to monitor and improve the site. These first-party cookies do not store or collect any personal information or anything that make you personally identifiable to us. Typically, the cookies generate a random, unique number to store information about a user.
Measuring website usage
VisitBritain uses Google Analytics to collect information about how people use our site. We do this to make sure it’s meeting its users’ needs and to understand how we could do it better.
Google Analytics stores information about what pages you visit, how long you are on the site, how you got here and what you click on. We do not collect or store your personal information (e.g. your name or address) so this information cannot be used to identify who you are. We do not allow Google to use or share our analytics data. See Google's privacy policy for further information.
Google Analytics cookies include: _utma, _utmb, _utmc, _utmv, _utmd,_utmz
• Data stored by cookies:
_utma stores each user’s number of visits, time of the first visit, the previous visit and the current visit
_utmb and _utmc checks how long a visitor stays on the site: when a visit starts and ends
_utmz tracks where a visitor came from (search engine, search keyword, link)
_utmv and _utmd track visitor journeys through the site and classifies them into groups
• Duration of cookies:
_utma expires two years after your last visit to this site
_utmb expires 30 minutes after your visit, or after 30 minutes of inactivity
_utmc expires at the end of a session (when you close your browser)
_utmz expires six months after it was last set
_utmv (not set) expires immediately
_utmd (not set) expires immediately
• Where it is used: all pages of VisitBritain website and VisitBritain blogs
• Impact on user’s experience of the site: none
YouTube and cookies
VisitBritain has a channel on YouTube (VisitBritainBiz) which is used to host videos on our website. Cookies are used to track visitor views of YouTube videos embedded in our web pages and usage of its services.
YouTube cookies include: GEO, VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE, use_hitbox, PREF, recently_watched_video_id_list
• Data stored by cookies: unique identifier that allows visitor analysis, data is only used in aggregate.
• Duration of cookie:
GEO expires after seven months
VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE expires after seven months
use_hitbox expires at the end of a session (when you close your browser).
PREF expires after 10 years
recently_watched_video_id_list expires after 7 months
• Where it is used: on web pages with embedded You Tube videos
• Impact on user's experience of the site: none
How to control and delete cookies
We will not use cookies to collect personally identifiable information about you. However, if you wish to restrict or block the cookies which are set by our websites, or indeed any other website, you can do this through your browser settings. The ‘Help’ function within your browser should tell you how.
Alternatively, you may wish to visit the About Cookies website, which contains comprehensive information on how to do this on a wide variety of browsers. You will also find details on how to delete cookies from your machine as well as more general information about cookies.
Please be aware that restricting cookies may have an impact upon the functionality of our website.
If you wish to view your cookie code, just click on a cookie to open it. You'll see a short string of text and numbers. The numbers are your identification card, which can only be seen by the server that gave you the cookie.
For information on how to do this on the browser of your mobile phone you will need to refer to your handset manual. To opt-out of third-parties collecting any data regarding your interaction on our website, please refer to their websites for further information.
Personal data
Personal data (i.e. information which could identify you) submitted to us, for example through online forms, is captured into our database. Primarily, the information provided is used to fulfil any queries and requests that have been sent to us. It is also used for updating you on the latest VisitBritain news and information. This information is confidential and is not passed on to any third party (including other Government departments or agencies) without your consent.
This statement only applies to www.visitbritain.org, www.visitbritain.com and the VisitBritain Blog. Third party sites that are linked to from these sites are not covered by this statement. You should check the privacy policy for the site in question to determine how your information will be used when visiting that site.
Social media policy
VisitBritain has accounts on Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, Facebook and Flickr.
Twitter policy
VisitBritain may occasionally use some automation (such as tools which generate tweets from RSS feeds) but intend that this will not dominate the messages posted.
If you follow us, you can expect tweets covering some or all of the following:
• alerts about new content on our other digital channels (news, publications, videos on YouTube, campaigns, latest research and insights, career vacancies etc)
• information from the VisitBritain team about what they’re doing
• live coverage of events
• retweets from third parties
Following
If you follow @VisitBritainBiz or @VisitBritain we will not automatically follow you back. This is to discourage the use of direct messaging, avoid resource-wasting spam handling, and so that you can easily identify other key Twitter users that we think are relevant to our industry in who we follow. However, being followed by @VisitBritainBiz or @VisitBritain does not imply endorsement of any kind.
Availability
VisitBritain updates and monitors our Twitter accounts during office hours, Monday to Friday. Twitter may occasionally be unavailable and we accept no responsibility for lack of service due to Twitter downtime.
@Replies and direct messages
VisitBritain welcomes feedback and ideas from all our followers, and endeavors to join the conversation where possible. However, we are not able to reply individually to all the messages we receive via Twitter.
The VisitBritain communications team reads all @replies and Direct Messages and ensures that any emerging themes or helpful suggestions are passed to the relevant people within VisitBritain. We cannot engage on issues of a political nature.
YouTube policy
VisitBritain use YouTube to:
• host films produced by VisitBritain and other third parties we are associated with on theVisitBritainBiz channel, some of which we automate into our website
• source relevant films from other YouTube members that promote our policies or promote the work of another organisation, campaign or initiative that we are associated with or interested in to embed in our website
If we embed a film from another YouTube member, we:
• may proportionally resize the window within the embed code to work within our website templates
• embed films within news stories and blogs to provide wider context into the subject matter portrayed in the film
• include the control buttons from YouTube, to allow users to view the film at its original location on YouTube, which opens in a new browser window
We welcome subscribers to our channel, but reserve the right to remove any subscriber that hosts content which is malicious or offensive in nature (e.g. incites hatred on the basis of race, religion, gender, nationality or sexuality or other personal characteristics) or contains a virus.
LinkedIn policy
VisitBritain welcome your comments on our LinkedIn page.
However, we do ask that our followers adhere to certain good practices to ensure that our page complies with the law and regulations governing the Civil Service, and to create a welcoming environment for all of our followers.
Therefore, we will remove comments that:
• contain swearing, abusive, offensive or obscene language
• make potentially libelous or defamatory statements
• constitute spam or promote or advertise products except where it is for an event, publication or similar item that has direct relevance to VisitBritain
• contain material which is potentially confidential, commercially sensitive, or which may cause personal distress or loss
• are designed to cause nuisance to the page administrator or other users
We may remove any posts that violate the above rules without prior notice, and our decision will be considered final. We will not edit any of your comments.
We may at any time, without notice to you, revise this policy and any other information contained in this page.
Facebook policy
VisitBritain welcome your comments or questions on our Facebook page and we encourage open debate.
However, we do ask that our followers adhere to certain good practices to ensure that our page complies with the law and regulations governing the Civil Service, and to create a welcoming environment for all of our followers.
Therefore, we will remove comments that:
• contain swearing, abusive, offensive or obscene language
• make potentially libelous or defamatory statements
• constitute spam or promote or advertise products except where it is for an event, publication or similar item that has direct relevance to VisitBritain
• contain material which is potentially confidential, commercially sensitive, or which may cause personal distress or loss
• are designed to cause nuisance to the page administrator or other users.
We may remove any posts that violate the above rules without prior notice, and our decision will be considered final. We will not edit any of your comments
We may at any time, without notice to you, revise this policy and any other information contained in this page.
Flickr policy
VisitBritain use Flickr to:
• host images that we own and license under the Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs creative commons license, some of which we automate into our website
• source images from other Flickr users that have been released on creative commons license, to embed in our website
If we use an image from another Flickr member we:
• credit the name of the Flickr account owner and link to the image on Flickr within the news story or blog where the image appears in or links to
• provide a link to the license information page for individual images within the news story or the images appears in or links to
• will remove any images from other Flickr users if the owner disagrees with its use
VisitBritain blogs
VisitBritain blogs are subject to moderation.
Moderation guidelines
‘Pre-moderation’ means that comments will not be published instantly; they will first be checked by moderators. Moderators will be monitoring the site during office hours Monday to Friday, and aim to process comments as quickly as possible.
This is not about censoring your views. The aim is to ensure the discussion is fair, inclusive, relevant and constructive. Moderation will not be used to suppress legitimate, reasoned discussion about the issues in this document.
We will normally approve comments for publication as long as they:
• respect other people. Comments should not be malicious or offensive in nature, and should not constitute a personal attack on a person’s character
• don’t incite hatred on the basis of race, religion, gender, nationality or sexuality or other personal characteristic
• don’t include swearing, hate-speech or obscenity
• don’t reveal personal details, such as private addresses, phone numbers, email addresses or other online contact details
• don’t break the law – this includes libel, condoning illegal activity, and breaking copyright
• are reasonably concise, and don’t constitute spamming of the site
• don’t advertise commercial products and services – you can mention relevant products and services as long as they support your comment
• don’t impersonate or falsely claim to represent a person or organisation
• are in English – unfortunately, we do not currently have the resource to moderate comments in other languages
• are on-topic. Please don’t post messages that are unrelated to this channel
• if you are aged 16 or under, please get your parent/guardian’s permission before submitting a comment. Users without this consent are not allowed to participate or provide us with personal information
We reserve the right to suspend comments at any time. Where we choose not to publish a comment for a reason other than those listed above, we will reply to the commenter by email explaining our reasons and inviting them to make appropriate changes so that the comment can be reconsidered.
The copyright of the original texts and the copyright of all comments remain with their respective authors.
If you wish to contact us for official correspondence visit the contact us section of our website.
