We take privacy very seriously
Effective date: 5 October 2026
This policy explains what personal information World Mate Travel collects when you use worldmatetravel.com, ask us for a trip, book a tour, or contact us by email, WhatsApp or Zalo. It covers what we collect, why, who we share it with, how long we keep it, and the rights you have. We only ask for what we need to plan and run your trip, and we never sell your personal information.
1. Who we are
World Mate Travel & Trading Co., Ltd. ("World Mate Travel", "we", "us") is responsible for your personal information. We are a Vietnamese tour operator, founded in 2008 and holding international tour operator licence No. 01-282/2010/TCDL-GP LHQT.
| Registered office | 166B Chien Thang Street, Ha Dong Ward, Hanoi, Vietnam |
|---|---|
| Tax code | 0500594270 |
| Privacy contact | sales@worldmatetravel.com |
| Phone and WhatsApp | +84 988 660 505 |
For any question about this policy or your data, write to the privacy contact above. We reply within 30 days, and usually much sooner.
2. What we collect
When you ask for a trip (the "Design your own itinerary" form or the contact form):
- Name, email address, and phone or WhatsApp number
- Nationality, preferred guide language and preferred currency
- Arrival and departure dates, and whether they are flexible
- Number of adults, and the number of children and infants travelling (as counts, not names)
- Budget range, destinations and interests you pick, and anything you write in the message box
- Your agreement to be contacted about your request
When you book a tour, we also collect what we need to run it:
- Full name as on the passport, date of birth, passport number, nationality and passport expiry date for every traveller, which hotels, airlines, cruises and visa services require
- Flight numbers and arrival and departure times
- Dietary needs (for example halal, vegetarian or food allergies) and mobility or medical needs you choose to tell us so we can plan safely
- Emergency contact details
- Payment records such as amount, date and reference. Card payments go through the bank or payment provider, and we do not store full card numbers.
When you subscribe to our newsletter: your email address.
When you message us by email, WhatsApp, Zalo or phone: your messages and the contact details they come from.
When you browse our website: technical data such as IP address, browser, device and pages viewed, collected through cookies and similar tools (see section 7).
We do not ask for, and you should not send us through the website form, passport scans, card numbers or other sensitive details. We will ask for them securely once a booking is confirmed.
3. Why we use it and our legal basis
| What we do | Data used | Legal basis |
|---|---|---|
| Reply to your inquiry and send a trip proposal | Inquiry form details, messages | Your consent, and steps you ask for before a contract |
| Book and run your tour: hotels, transport, guides, cruises, flights, tickets | Booking details, passport data, travel times, dietary and access needs | Performing our contract with you |
| Arrange a Vietnam e-visa or other visa if you ask us to | Passport details, photo, travel dates | Performing our contract, and your explicit consent |
| Keep you safe and deal with emergencies on tour | Emergency contact, medical or mobility needs you shared | Your explicit consent, or vital interests in an emergency |
| Invoices, accounting and tax records | Name, booking and payment records | Legal obligation under Vietnamese law |
| Register foreign guests with local police where Vietnamese law requires it | Passport details | Legal obligation |
| Send our newsletter | Email address | Your consent. You can unsubscribe at any time. |
| Measure and improve our website, and show our ads to people who visited it | Cookie and device data | Our legitimate interest in understanding how our website is used and whether our advertising works. You can opt out at any time (see section 7). |
| Protect our website and forms from spam and fraud | IP address, technical data | Our legitimate interest in keeping our systems secure |
We do not use your data for automated decisions that have legal or similarly significant effects on you.
4. Who we share it with
We share only what each party needs to deliver its part of your trip:
- Travel suppliers: hotels, cruises, transport companies, tour guides, restaurants, attractions and activity providers in Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Myanmar and any other country on your route.
- Airlines and train operators, when we book tickets for you.
- Visa services and government authorities: Vietnam's immigration e-visa system and visa agents when you ask us to arrange a visa, and police or immigration authorities where the law requires guest registration.
- Partner travel agents in other countries, only if your trip was booked through them or includes a destination they operate for us.
- Service providers who work for us: website hosting (Amazon Web Services), our website content and inquiry system, email, WhatsApp and Zalo messaging, accounting software and banks. They may use your data only to provide their service to us.
- Authorities, courts or advisers, when the law requires it or to protect our legal rights.
We do not sell or rent your personal information, and we do not share it with third parties for their own marketing.
5. International transfers
We are based in Vietnam, so if you contact us from another country your data is transferred to and handled in Vietnam. It also goes to suppliers in the other countries on your itinerary, and to service providers whose servers may be outside Vietnam.
We make these transfers because they are needed to arrange the trip you asked for. Where the law requires it, we use appropriate safeguards: contractual commitments from our service providers, and the transfer impact assessments required under Vietnam's Personal Data Protection Law. For travellers in the EU or UK, where a transfer is not covered by an adequacy decision, we rely on standard contractual clauses or, for supplier bookings, on the transfer being necessary to perform your contract. You can ask us for more detail about the safeguards for your data.
6. How long we keep it
| Data | How long |
|---|---|
| Inquiries that do not become a booking | 2 years after our last contact, then deleted |
| Booking records, including passport details | Until the end of your trip plus 2 years, to handle complaints and claims |
| Invoices and accounting records | 10 years, as Vietnamese accounting law requires |
| Newsletter subscription | Until you unsubscribe |
| Website analytics data | Up to 14 months |
| WhatsApp, Zalo and email messages | Same period as the inquiry or booking they relate to |
When a retention period ends, we delete the data or make it anonymous.
7. Cookies and analytics
Cookies are small files your browser stores. Our website sets the cookies below when a page loads:
| Type | Tool | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
| Strictly necessary | Our own website | Security and spam protection on forms |
| Analytics | Google Analytics (_ga, _ga_*) | Counts visits and shows which pages are useful |
| Advertising | Google Ads (_gcl_au) | Measures whether our Google ads lead to inquiries |
| Advertising | Meta Pixel (_fbp) | Measures our Facebook and Instagram ads and shows our ads to past visitors |
| Embedded content | YouTube, Google Maps | Plays videos and shows maps on our pages; these providers may set their own cookies |
You can opt out of the analytics and advertising cookies at any time:
- Block or delete cookies in your browser settings. Most browsers can also block third-party cookies only.
- Google Analytics: install Google's opt-out browser add-on.
- Google ads: turn off personalised ads in My Ad Center.
- Meta ads: change your ad preferences in your Facebook or Instagram settings.
Opting out does not stop you using the site or sending an inquiry.
8. Your rights
Wherever you live, you can ask us to:
- Access: tell you what data we hold about you and give you a copy.
- Correct: fix data that is wrong or incomplete.
- Delete: erase your data when we no longer need it or you withdraw consent, unless the law requires us to keep it (for example, invoices).
- Restrict or object: stop or limit certain uses, including all direct marketing.
- Portability: give you the data you provided in a common electronic format.
- Withdraw consent at any time. This does not affect anything we did before you withdrew it.
To use any of these rights, contact the privacy contact in section 1. We may ask you to confirm your identity first. We answer within 30 days, or sooner where a law requires, and there is no charge.
Travellers in the EU, EEA and UK have these rights under the GDPR and UK GDPR, and can complain to their local data protection authority.
Travellers in Vietnam, and anyone whose data we handle in Vietnam, have rights under Vietnam's Law on Personal Data Protection No. 91/2025/QH15, in force since 1 January 2026, and its implementing Decree 356/2025/ND-CP.
Travellers in California and other US states with privacy laws can ask what we collect and ask us to delete it. We do not sell or "share" personal information for cross-context behavioural advertising, except through the advertising cookies in section 7, which you can opt out of as described there. We will not treat you differently for using your rights.
9. Children
Our website is not meant for children, and only adults may send an inquiry or make a booking. When a family books with us, the adult making the booking gives us the children's details needed for the trip, such as name, date of birth and passport details, and confirms they have the authority to do so as parent or guardian. We use children's data only to arrange and run the trip.
10. How we protect your data
Our website and forms use encrypted HTTPS connections. Access to inquiry and booking records is limited to staff who need it for your trip, and each account is password-protected. Passport details go only to the suppliers and authorities that need them. If a data breach puts your rights at risk, we will notify the relevant authority and, where required, contact you. Under Vietnamese law we report breaches to the authority within 72 hours.
11. Changes to this policy
We may update this policy when our services or the law change. The date at the top shows the latest version. If a change significantly affects how we use your data, we will tell you by email or with a notice on the website.
12. Contact and complaints
If you have a question or a complaint, contact us first and we will try to resolve it:
World Mate Travel & Trading Co., Ltd.
166B Chien Thang Street, Ha Dong Ward, Hanoi, Vietnam
Email: sales@worldmatetravel.com · Phone and WhatsApp: +84 988 660 505
You also have the right to complain to a data protection authority: in Vietnam, the Ministry of Public Security's Department of Cybersecurity and High-Tech Crime Prevention (A05); in the EU, EEA or UK, the authority where you live.