Privacy Policy

This policy explains what happens to information when you visit genevatourism.org. It describes what the site actually does today, not a generic template — if something listed here stops being true, this page gets updated rather than left standing.

Short version: you can read every guide on this site without giving us anything. We do not sell data, we do not run a mailing list, and there is no way to create an account here.

01 — Who is responsible.

Geneva Tourism Guide, an independent travel publication, is the controller for the processing described below. The way to reach us about anything on this page is the form on our contact page.

02 — What we collect, and why.

If you send us a message

The contact form asks for your name, your email address, an optional subject line and your message. It is delivered to us as an email. The form does not save entries to a database on this site, so once we have dealt with your message the only copy is in our mailbox, where it stays until we clear it out — usually within a year for ordinary correspondence, longer if it is a correction we are still working through. We use your address to reply to you and for nothing else.

Server logs

Our hosting provider records ordinary web server logs — IP address, the page requested, the time, the browser’s user-agent string — as every web server does. These exist so the site can be kept running and secure, they are not used to build a profile of you, and they are retained on a short rolling basis by the host.

Analytics

We use Google Analytics 4, installed through the Site Kit plugin, to see which guides get read and where readers arrive from. This tells us which pages need updating and which subjects are missing. Analytics uses cookies and collects a truncated IP address, the pages you view, roughly where in the world you are, and what kind of device you are on. It does not tell us who you are, and we have configured it not to track our own logged-in administrator sessions.

You can opt out of Google Analytics across every site you visit with Google’s browser add-on.

Booking links and commission

This site carries no display advertising. It is funded by booking commission. We work with Stay22, a booking partner whose script rewrites the accommodation, transfer and activity links in our guides as the page loads, adding the tracking that lets a booking be credited to us. The provider pays that commission; your price is the same either way. There is a fuller explanation on our affiliate disclosure page.

Stay22’s script identifies your device so that a booking can be credited to us. It does this from characteristics of your browser and device rather than by setting a cookie, and it stores an identifier in your browser’s local storage — so a cookie-only opt-out would not catch it. On this site the script is held behind the consent banner as a marketing service: in the EEA, the United Kingdom and Switzerland it does not load at all unless you accept that category, and elsewhere you can switch it off from the same banner. Refusing does not limit anything you can read here.

What we do not do

Comments are switched off across the whole site, so we hold no commenter names, addresses or IPs. There is no newsletter and no signup form. Visitors cannot register accounts. We do not sell, rent or trade personal information, and we do not share it with anyone beyond the service providers named above.

03 — Cookies.

Two kinds of cookie can be set here. Strictly necessary ones keep the site and its caching working. Analytics cookies are the Google Analytics ones described above, and they are set only after consent. Our booking partner sets no cookie at all — it stores an identifier in local storage instead, which is why it appears under marketing in the consent banner rather than in a cookie list. Blocking cookies in your browser settings will not stop you reading anything on this site.

04 — What runs before you choose, and how to change it.

What runs before you choose depends on where you are reading from, because the law does. In the European Economic Area and the United Kingdom, and in Brazil, Chile, China, Israel, Nigeria, South Korea, Thailand, Türkiye and Vietnam, nothing beyond the strictly necessary runs until you answer the dialog on your first visit — not analytics, not Stay22 — and Reject all sits on that first screen next to Accept all, not behind a second click.

In the United States you are shown a bar rather than a dialog, and it is not only a notice. Analytics starts on arrival there, but advertising and booking-partner scripts stay switched off until you answer it. In Switzerland you get the dialog too, but analytics starts on arrival there and only advertising and booking-partner scripts wait for your answer. In Canada, and in the countries where notice is enough — among them Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Singapore, India and Mexico — everything described on this page starts when you arrive; the notice tells you so, and the same control switches it off. Everywhere else, and whenever we cannot tell where you are, the strictest setting applies: nothing beyond the necessary runs until you answer.

Your answer is kept on your own device, in a first-party cookie called cookie_consent_f4100f that only this site can read, so you are not asked again on every page. It lasts about a year. The Cookie settings link in the footer of every page reopens the choice, and withdrawing is the same two clicks as agreeing: the scripts stop and what they stored on your device is cleared, including visitor_id_id22, cache_id22 and the thumbmark_* keys.

Refusing costs you nothing. Every guide here is readable in full either way, nothing is paywalled, and no part of Geneva Tourism Guide is held back from readers who say no.

05 — If you are reading this in the United States.

Several US states give you the right to opt out of the “sale” or “sharing” of personal information, and those words are broader than they sound: letting an advertising or affiliate partner receive information about your visit can count as sharing even though no money changes hands for your data and we have never sold anything of the kind. Rather than argue the definition, Geneva Tourism Guide treats it as covered.

So the bar shown to US readers carries a Do not sell or share button, and for US readers the Cookie settings link at the foot of every page reads Do not sell or share my personal information. Using it stops the advertising category, which is what Stay22 and any ad partner sit in, and clears what they have already stored on your device.

This site also honours Global Privacy Control. If your browser or an extension sends a GPC signal, it is treated as a valid opt-out on arrival — you do not have to find the control and click it as well, and we do not ask again on later visits. Do Not Track is a different and long-abandoned signal, and to be straight about it: this site does not act on DNT, because nothing agreed what it ought to mean.

06 — The record kept of your choice.

Proving that a choice was offered and honoured means keeping a record of it. Each answer is logged with the date and time, the two-letter country the choice was made from, which of the rule sets above applied, a reference to the exact wording you were shown, and the choice itself, against a random identifier generated for your browser.

That record contains no name, no email address and no IP address. It holds a salted hash of your browser’s user-agent string, and the salt changes every day, so two visits on different days cannot be linked back together through it. Records are deleted after 26 months. If you want to see or delete the entries tied to your browser, ask through the contact form.

07 — Legal bases, and where you are.

This site is about a Swiss city, so most of our readers fall under one of three regimes. Under the EU and UK GDPR, we rely on your consent for analytics cookies and for our booking partner’s script, and on legitimate interests for keeping the site secure and answering correspondence you have chosen to send us. Under the revised Swiss Federal Act on Data Protection, in force since September 2023, the same processing applies and Swiss residents have equivalent rights of access and correction. Readers elsewhere are covered by the same practices, because we do not think it is worth running two standards.

08 — Your rights.

You can ask us what we hold about you, ask for it to be corrected, ask for it to be deleted, or object to our processing it. In practice, for almost every reader, the honest answer is that we hold nothing tied to you personally other than an email you chose to send us — and we will delete that on request. Use the contact form and we will respond within a month. If you are in the EEA, the UK or Switzerland you may complain to your national data protection authority.

09 — Children.

This site is written for adults planning travel and is not directed at children. We do not knowingly collect information from anyone under 16. If you believe a child has sent us something through the contact form, tell us and we will delete it.

10 — Changes to this policy.

When what the site does changes — a new analytics tool, a change to how advertising is served — this page changes with it, and the revision date below is updated. There is no version of this policy that describes something we have not actually implemented.

Last reviewed: 21 September 2026.