This policy explains what Cotswolds Tourism (cotswoldstourism.org) collects when you visit, why, and what you can do about it. It describes how the site actually works today rather than a generic set of possibilities, and it is updated when that changes.
Last updated: 9 September 2026.
The short version
You can read every guide on this site without giving anything at all. There is no account to create, no newsletter, no login and no comment section — comments are closed across the site. The only personal information the site ever receives directly is what you type into the contact form. Beyond that, Google Analytics counts which guides get read, some booking links earn a commission, and the web server keeps the ordinary technical record of your request.
Who is responsible
The site is published from the United Kingdom by the independent publisher of Cotswolds Tourism, who is the data controller for everything described here. It is subject to the UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018, and to the EU GDPR in respect of readers in the EEA. The contact form is the route for any question about your data, including a request to see it or delete it.
What the contact form collects
The form asks for your name, your email address and your message. That is delivered to my mailbox and kept there so the conversation makes sense if you write again. It is used to reply to you and for nothing else: it is not added to a mailing list, not used for marketing, and not sold or shared. Ask through the form and the correspondence will be deleted.
The legal basis is your consent, given by choosing to send the message, together with a legitimate interest in answering it.
Server logs
The web host records standard access logs for every request: IP address, the time, the page requested, the referring page and your browser’s user-agent string. These exist to keep the site running and to deal with abuse and attacks. They are not used to build a profile of you, and they are discarded on the host’s normal rotation.
Google Analytics and Search Console
The site runs Google Analytics 4, which sets cookies in your browser and reports how many people read each guide, roughly where in the world they are, and whether they arrived from a search engine or a link. IP addresses are truncated by Google before the data reaches me, and individual visitors are never identified — only counts. It is used to decide which parts of the Cotswolds to write about next.
The site is also verified with Google Search Console, which reports the search queries that lead people here. Search Console works from Google’s own records and sets no cookies on this site. If you would rather not be counted at all, Google publishes a browser opt-out add-on at tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout, and most browsers can block analytics cookies outright.
Cookies, and the notice about them
The cookies on this site come from three places: Google Analytics, described above; the GDPR Cookie Compliance plugin, which sets one recording your response to the cookie notice so that the notice is not shown again on every page; and the affiliate booking partners described below, which set their own once you click one of those booking links. WordPress itself sets cookies only for a logged-in administrator, which as a reader you never are, and the caching layer uses technical cookies to serve pages quickly.
A cookie notice is shown on your first visit and explains what is used. Your browser’s own cookie settings remain the most complete control, and blocking cookies here costs you nothing: every guide on the site works without them.
Affiliate links and booking partners
Some of the links on this site are affiliate links. Where a guide points at somewhere to stay, that link is usually one of them. Accommodation links are handled by Stay22, a booking-link service that adds a referral tag when you click through to a hotel or booking site. If you go on to book, the booking site pays a small commission. The price you pay is the same either way, and nothing on this site is behind a paywall or conditional on using those links.
What that means for your data: when you click one of these links, the partner receives the fact that the click came from this site, along with the standard technical details any website receives, and sets its own cookie or identifier so that a booking made afterwards can be attributed and the commission paid. Cotswolds Tourism never sees your booking, your travel dates, your name or your payment details — what comes back is a count of clicks and, occasionally, the fact that a booking happened.
Once you follow one of those links you are on the booking partner’s own site, under their privacy policy, and this one stops applying. If you would rather not be tracked that way, blocking third-party cookies in your browser stops the attribution; the links still work and the price is unchanged.
Links to other sites
Guides link out to the National Trust, English Heritage, train and bus operators, councils and individual businesses so you can check things at source. Once you follow one of those links you are on someone else’s site under someone else’s policy, and I have no control over what they collect. That applies equally to the affiliate booking links described above and to the official sites, which earn nothing.
Who your data is shared with
Nothing is sold, rented or traded. Information is shared only with the service providers that make the site work: the web host, Google for analytics, Stay22 and the booking platforms it refers to for the affiliate links above, and the provider that delivers contact-form messages. Each processes data under its own terms and only to provide that service. Some of them operate internationally, so data may be processed outside the UK, relying on the safeguards those providers have in place.
Your rights
Under the UK GDPR and the EU GDPR you can ask for a copy of the personal data held about you, ask for it to be corrected or erased, object to how it is used, or withdraw consent you previously gave. In practice the only personal data this site holds is contact-form correspondence, so a request is straightforward to honour. Send it through the form and expect a reply within a month. If you are unhappy with the response you can complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office at ico.org.uk, or to your own national data protection authority if you are in the EEA.
Children
This site is written for adults planning travel and is not directed at children. Information is not knowingly collected from anyone under 16.
Changes to this policy
If this policy changes materially, the updated version is published here with a new date. Questions about it go through the contact page.