Privacy Policy

The Buncombe County Tourism Development (BCTDA) and Explore Asheville are committed to ensuring the privacy of visitors to its website. BCTDA/Explore Asheville has adopted data protection policies with respect to your privacy and security. The following statement discloses our information collection and dissemination practices for ExploreAsheville.com.

ExploreAsheville.com links to websites owned and operated by other businesses and tourism partners. BCTDA/Explore Asheville does not have access to private and personal information gathered by those websites unless it is explicitly mentioned in this privacy policy. BCTDA/Explore Asheville is not responsible for the content of or processing of private and personal information on other websites. For more information, please see each website's privacy and security policy statement.

Contact information

If you have questions or comments about this statement or how we treat personal information, you can contact us at privacy@exploreasheville.com or send mail to:

Explore Asheville
attn: ExploreAsheville.com Privacy Policy
27 College Place
Asheville, NC 28801

Contents

  1. About ExploreAsheville.com
  2. Purpose of processing
  3. Which data are processed?
  4. Personal information about minors
  5. Access to the information
  6. Direct marketing
  7. Data processors and transfer of data to other countries
  8. Safeguarding of the information
  9. Your rights
  10. Enforcement of this privacy policy statement
  11. Consent, governing law, venue
  12. Changes to the declaration
  13. Copyright information

1. ABOUT EXPLOREASHEVILLE.COM

ExploreAsheville.com is the official travel website for Asheville, NC and is published by the Buncombe County Tourism Development Authority and Explore Asheville. This Privacy Statement applies to all BCTDA/Explore Asheville sites, including subdomains such as reservations.ExploreAsheville.com, bcht.exploreasheville.com and industry partner websites such as AshevilleCVB.com.

2. PURPOSE OF PROCESSING

No personal information is required to access this site. However, in order to request a Visitor Guide, sign up for a newsletter, or book a hotel room, certain information may be required. It is entirely voluntary for those visiting the website to provide personal information in connection with services to receive newsletters, order information material and book hotel rooms.

We will use information about you for any of the following purposes:

  • To make it easy for you to find destinations, events and other information about Asheville as a tourist destination.
  • To send out Visitor Guides and other physical materials via our website and other channels.
  • To provide information about news, events and Explore Asheville promotions. For statistics, aggregation and management of sites and services.

Information is obtained in order to allow ExploreAsheville.com to get further information about website users, including how users come to the site, as well as tracking general usage patterns of users on the ExploreAsheville.com website. We use this information to manage and enhance the site.

3. WHICH DATA IS PROCESSED?

We process both personally identifiable information and non-personally identifiable information about you. Personally identifiable information is information that identifies you as an individual. Non-personally identifiable information is information and any other details that do not reveal your personal identity.

Personally identifiable information

We collect and process the following information:

You can subscribe to newsletters so that you receive emails from BCTDA/Explore Asheville on current news. For us to send email to the appropriate subscriber, you must register your first and last names, as well as an email address.

If you direct a request to BCTDA/Explore Asheville via the web, such as sending us an email, relevant information could be stored, such as name and email address.

If you sign up to receive our e-mail newsletter with updates and special deals and later change your mind, simply click the unsubscribe link in any of our e-mail updates.

When you fill out the form to receive our Travel Guide, you have a choice to opt-in to receive our e-mail newsletter. This is a double opt-in process. 

On ExploreAsheville.com, you can order Travel Guides and other information and materials by providing your name, business, email and postal address. Personal information we receive for processing orders of such material will not be used for any purpose other than to effectuate the order, unless you have explicitly indicated that you want to receive e-mail from us.

When you visit ExploreAsheville.com your IP address is recorded. We do not link this information directly to you as a user. The information is used to manage and maintain our sites. Examples of information that this data provides: How many people visit different sites, how long the visit lasts, what websites users are coming from and which browser is used. This enables us to develop better and more user-friendly services. See more about web analytics and cookies below.

Explore Asheville may keep track of the websites and pages our users visit within ExploreAsheville.com, in order to determine what Explore Asheville services are the most popular. This data is used to deliver customized content and advertising within Explore Asheville to users whose behavior indicates that they are interested in a particular subject area.

User reviews

ExploreAsheville.com may, by agreement with TripAdvisor, collect and display reviews from users who have published information on relevant destinations and products on TripAdvisor. You have waived all rights you may have in such user reviews. Your assessment(s) can be freely used, copied, distributed and published in any medium, and in any form, without your permission. See TripAdvisor's  Terms of Use, Privacy Policy and Cookie Policy.

We do not edit user reviews published on TripAdvisor and cannot be held responsible for such user reviews, or any further use, distribution, or republication of them. BCTDA/Explore Asheville neither confirms nor endorses opinions or attitudes expressed in user reviews as individuals' personal beliefs. Any decision made on the basis of reviews or comments that are on ExploreAsheville.com, is at your own risk.

Surveys

BCTDA/Explore Asheville may use Survey Monkey and/or Google Forms user surveys. It is voluntary to participate in user surveys, and we collect your explicit consent.

Geo-Location Data

If you are accessing a page or service from a computer or a mobile device, you may be asked to share your precise (GPS level) geo-location information with us so we can customize your experience on our services or on other services when we work with a marketing partner such as a third party service provider, advertiser, advertising network and platform, advertising agency, and a data broker or aggregator. If you agree to the collection of location data, in most cases, you will be able to turn off such data collection at any time by accessing the privacy settings of your mobile device.

Usage Data, Web Analysis and Cookies

ExploreAsheville.com collects and BCTDA/Explore Asheville processes Usage Data as you use ExploreAsheville.com and other BCTDA/Explore Asheville websites, including your interactions with emails we send, and via social media platforms, third-party platforms, third-party websites, applications, integrations, and services of our marketing partners. This data may be passively or automatically collected (that is, gathered without your actively providing the information) using various analytics and reporting technologies, such as cookies, web beacons, locally stored objects, and mobile device identifiers and SDKs, and other similar methodologies as well as similar technologies developed in the future. We use common Internet technologies, including Google Analytics and "cookies" to collect information about users so that at any time we can provide the best possible functionality and develop our information services. This information is taken from the computer's web browser and may include your IP address, operating system, browser, screen resolution and previous website.

"Cookies" are small information capsules (text files) that the website asks your browser to store on your computer or mobile device. This allows the website to remember actions or preferences over time. Most browsers automatically accept cookies. You can always choose to not accept a cookie by changing your browser settings to reject cookies automatically, or so that each cookie must be approved individually, but this may limit the functions available. Consent is considered given if the browser is set to accept the use of cookies. This also applies if the browser is pre-set for acceptance.

To read more about cookies, including how to opt out of accepting cookies on your computer, see for example: allaboutcookies.org/manage-cookies/ and Google Analytics.

When you visit this website, Explore Asheville and/or third parties may use cookies, web beacons or similar technologies to collect or receive non-personally identifiable information (such as general location data based on the internet protocol (IP) address of your device or interactions with this site’s advertisements) and use that information to provide measurement services and to target advertisements to inspire a site visitor to visit Buncombe County. You may choose to opt-out of the collection and use of information for ad targeting; for details visit www.aboutads.info/choices or www.networkadvertising.org/choices. EU visitors can see details at www.youronlinechoices.eu. If a site visitor wishes to opt out of cookies allowing this site to serve advertisements while the site visitor is in Buncombe County, and collect aggregate information upon that site visitor’s arrival, click here.

Your consent applies to the following domains: www.ExploreAsheville.com, reservations.ExploreAsheville.comwww.AshevilleCVB.com

Removal of data

In the event you desire for us to delete your personal information we may have stored, you may contact us at privacy@exploreasheville.com. We will make best efforts to comply with such requests within 30-60 days depending of the complexity of the actions necessary to comply with the request. We are not, of course, able to delete all data entirely inasmuch as retention of certain data is required by law, useful for reasons of public interest, or otherwise necessary and reasonable in view of the law and our potential legal positions. 

4. PERSONAL INFORMATION ABOUT MINORS

Explore Asheville does not gather information about your age and does not purposely process information about children under 15 years of age. A Note for Parents. The Services, and any other affiliated forums, are not directed to children under eighteen (18) years of age. We do not knowingly solicit or collect personal information from children under eighteen (18) years of age. If you are a parent or guardian and have become aware that your child has provided us with personal information, please contact us at privacy@exploreasheville.com. If we become aware that we have collected personal information from children without verification of parental consent, we will make commercially reasonable steps to remove that information from our servers.

5. ACCESS TO THE INFORMATION

We may make full, unrestricted use of Usage Data for any purpose in our sole discretion, including without limitation, to customize or personalize ads, offers and content made available to you based on your visits to and/or usage of this site or its services, and to analyze the performance of those ads, offers and content, as well as your interaction with them.

We may combine and use the Personal Information and Usage Data we collect from all services and products offered by us and our affiliated entities over various websites to provide, protect, and improve them, and to develop and offer new services and products. We will treat you as a single user of these combined services and products. We may also use this information to provide you with personalized ads.

To ensure that the processing of information is carried out in a safe manner, only specifically authorized persons at Explore Asheville, and our subcontractors and system suppliers (see below and section 7) will have access to the information you provide us. The number of employees with such approval is limited. Access to information is secured by access mechanisms.

We will not disclose, sell, distribute, rent, license, share or pass details or personal information to any third parties other than those who deliver and are contracted to deliver services to us, unless we have your express consent to do so.

Explore Asheville has signed an agreement with various distribution partners who distribute our newsletters, brochures and other materials, so-called "routing." Distribution partners are:

  • Act-On for email communications
  • Saga City to distribute Visitor Guides

We will not share personal information with our distribution partners to a greater extent than is necessary to complete the purpose, such as sending out visitor guides and newsletters.

By contract, our suppliers may not use or disclose your personal information for other purposes, without your permission.

6. DIRECT MARKETING

It is voluntary to subscribe to newsletters. Newsletters contain current information about Asheville but may also contain commercial information about products and services from suppliers in Asheville. The newsletters are sent out 1-2 times a month. You can unsubscribe at any time via a link in the newsletter.

Further, this website uses data collected from website visitors for remarketing and retargeting purposes. However, we do not allow any third party to use your personal data for marketing or communication purposes, other than those that are related to BCTDA/Explore Asheville business, marketing or communications.

Site visitors who no longer wish to receive our newsletters or electronically provided promotional materials may opt-out at any time by using the unsubscribe link that is included on every communication.

7. DATA PROCESSORS AND TRANSFER OF DATA

Explore Asheville has signed an agreement with the following data handlers:

  • Simpleview (www.simpleviewinc.com)
  • CrowdRiff (crowdriff.com)
  • Bound (bound360.com)
  • MMGY (mmgy.com)
  • Miles Partnership (milespartnership.com)
  • Distribution partners mentioned in section 5, above.

All Explore Asheville sites are currently located on servers in USA, but our data processors have reserved the right to transmit information to servers or subcontractors in other countries.

8. SAFEGUARDING OF THE INFORMATION

We have established rules and procedures for the protection of personal data and privacy.

When we treat "non personally identifiable information" combined with "personally identifiable information" (for example, your name combined with geographical location) the collected information is treated as personally identifiable information.

If we share your personal information with a third party, we will ensure that there are arrangements and agreements in place to ensure the safety of the information and prevent that the third party uses the personal information for purposes other than what was agreed.

We shall use all reasonable precautions to ensure that our employees, data processors and third parties who have access to information about you have adequate information to ensure that they treat such information in accordance with this statement and our obligations under privacy legislation. To protect your personal information, we take reasonable precautions and follow industry best practices to make sure it is not inappropriately lost, misused, accessed, disclosed, altered or destroyed. Although no method of transmission over the Internet or electronic storage is 100% secure, we implement additional generally accepted industry standards, including the use of Secure Socket Layer (SSL) technology to encrypt all personal information. 

BCTDA/Explore Asheville may terminate or suspend access to any of the BCTDA/Explore Asheville site and its services, immediately, without prior notice or liability, for any reason whatsoever, including without limitation if you breach this Privacy Policy. Upon termination, your right to use the BCTDA/Explore Asheville site and its services will immediately cease, however this Privacy Policy will remain in effect.

9. YOUR RIGHTS

You have the right to know how your personal information is processed by our organization. BCTDA/Explore Asheville has given this information in this statement.

If BCTDA/Explore Asheville handles personal information about you, you are entitled to access your own information. If personal information is inaccurate, incomplete or inaccessible, you can ask BCTDA/Explore Asheville to correct the information or to remove it. See contact information in the introduction to this declaration.

10. ENFORCEMENT OF THIS PRIVACY POLICY STATEMENT

BCTDA/Explore Asheville may use the information that we collect about you when we have reason to believe that it is necessary to identify, contact or bring legal action against persons or entities that may harm you, us or others. We may also disclose your information when we believe it is required by law.

11. CONSENT, GOVERNING LAW, VENUE

This privacy statement applies to all users of our website. We require that users agree to comply with the declaration as part of our relationship.

By using our website you accept that your personal data may be processed in accordance with this privacy policy, which includes transferring data to agents and third parties as described in this statement. Certain tools may be available to you to opt out of our automatic collection of your data, such as, for example, installing the Google Analytics opt-out browser add-on or a personal data service software application. 

To learn more about advertising networks and how to opt out of sharing information with them, please click here and here. If you’re in the EU, you can find additional information about your choices with respect to advertising networks and online behavioral advertising by clicking here.

We respect your privacy and give you an opportunity to opt-out of receiving announcements of certain information. Users may opt-out of receiving any or all communications from Explore Asheville by contacting us here:

  • privacy@exploreasheville.com or send mail to:
  • Explore Asheville 
    att: ExploreAsheville.com Privacy Policy
    27 College Place
    Asheville, NC 28801

BCTDA/Explore Asheville operates from USA and is subject to US law.  More specifically, you agree that all matters relating to this Agreement shall be interpreted in accordance with the laws applicable in North Carolina, without reference to its conflict of law provisions, and the parties agree to the exclusive jurisdiction of the Courts of North Carolina. This Agreement shall inure to the benefit of, and be binding upon, the successors, heirs, legal representatives and assigns of each of the BCTDA/Explore Asheville and you, as applicable.

Specific Legal Compliance:

California Online Privacy Protection Act Compliance

Because we value your privacy we have taken the necessary precautions to be in compliance with the California Online Privacy Protection Act. We therefore will not distribute your personal information to outside parties without your consent.

E.U. General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)

BCTDA/Explore Asheville collects personal data from individual users of our website, and thereby act as a date controller (“Controller”) in relation to your personal data. Certain of this data may constitute protected “personal data” as that term is defined in the E.U. General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”). If you are located in the European Union (EU), the European Economic Area (EEA) or Switzerland, this additional information may be relevant and applicable to you.

The following disclosures concerning Controller’s compliance with GDPR are presented for informational and compliance purposes only.  Nothing in these disclosures constitutes a representation that any particular data or service is governed or subject to GDPR, nor do these disclosures represent or constitute any contract or undertaking with any individual.

Effective Date of GDPR

GDPR took effect on May 25, 2018. On and after that date, Controller aligns it privacy practices with the GDPR and, subject to the above understandings, will comply with GDPR to the extent required.

Utilization of Data

Controller utilizes personal data including the information provided by you during usage of the website and submission of forms.  This data may be used, for example, to send information electronically or physically that you request. Controller processes this data for many legal purposes (without limitation):

  • Legitimate Interest. We may process your personal data as required to pursue our legitimate business interests (provided this is not overridden by interests or rights of relevant individuals); in particular, to manage, develop improve, market and promote our purposes, interests and services; support our customers and sales/marketing operations; protect our staff and assets; communicate information that supplements our purposes, interests and services and ensure compliance with laws and regulations.
  • Performance of an agreement. We may process your personal data to enter into or fulfill agreements with you or your organizations, including to deliver and manage our purposes, interests and services and allow our customers to use our services and supporting tools.
  • Legal obligation. We may process your personal data to comply with applicable laws and regulations, or to establish or exercise our legal rights. For example, in connection with legal claims, compliance, regulatory and investigative purposes.
  • Consent. We may process your personal data where you have provided your consent; in particular, where we cannot rely on an alternative legal basis or we are required by law to ask for your consent in the context of some of our sales and marketing activities, online data collection tools, or surveys. You have the right, at any time, to withdraw your consent by changing your communication choices, unsubscribing from our website or communications or contacting our offices as noted herein.

The above legal basis is not intended to limit the legitimate use of information by Controller as described in other sections of this Privacy Statement.

Basis for the Processing of Data

Controller may seek your consent to send communications (marketing communications).  Controller will seek a separate consent to send these communications in certain cases which may be revoked by you at any time via email to privacy@exploreasheville.com or by clicking unsubscribe on the pertinent email communication.

Recipients of Personal Data

Recipients of personal data may include fulfillment providers for physical mailing, email deployers, technical providers of data storage, and back-end service providers.  All employees of Controller who receive or review personal data have received training concerning maintaining the confidentiality of such data and committed themselves to confidentiality.  Where appropriate, Controller will enter into written agreements governing the processing and confidentiality of personal data by third parties.

Storage of Data

Controller will retain data only so long as is necessary.

Your Rights Under GDPR

If the GDPR applies to retention of your personal data, you have several rights including (i) the right to request access, rectification or erasure of your data, (ii) the right to lodge a complaint with the appropriate European Union supervisory authority, and (iii) to the extent processing of data is based on consent, you have the right to withdraw your consent at any time.

A copy of the GDPR is available here
 

12. CHANGES TO THE DECLARATION

BCTDA/Explore Asheville reserves the right to modify, change, update or replace this privacy statement, without notice to you. It is your responsibility to review it from time to time to be aware of any such change. Your continued use of this service will indicate your agreement to any such change. All changes are valid from the time of being posted, and will include information gathered from that date, as well as existing information held by BCTDA/Explore Asheville. You can find out when these guidelines were last revised by referring to the date given by "last updated" on this page.

By continuing to access or use our services after any changes to the privacy policies in the Privacy Statement become effective, you agree to be bound by the revised terms. If you do not agree to any new policy within this Privacy Statement, please stop using the services. We strongly encourage you to read our Privacy Statement, and for regular or repeat users of BCTDA/Explore Asheville sites, to keep yourself informed of any changes by regularly reviewing both this Privacy Statement. 

13. COPYRIGHT INFORMATION

All content including copy, images and other materials is copyrighted. This website is designed and maintained by the staff of Explore Asheville. The images on this site are owned by the BCTDA (unless otherwise stated) and may not be used without the permission of Explore Asheville. We appreciate the time you have spent reviewing http://www.ExploreAsheville.com. We hope that we can continue to build a long-term relationship with you and encourage you to contact us with your questions or comments. Thank you.

Last Updated: January 12, 2024