Privacy Policy

Last updated: September 2026

1. Introduction

Via Turquia ("we," "us," or "our") is committed to protecting and respecting your privacy. This Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use, store, and protect your personal data when you visit our website viaturquia.com, make a booking, or interact with our services. This policy is designed to comply with the Turkish Personal Data Protection Law (KVKK, Law No. 6698) and the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) where applicable.

2. Information We Collect

We collect the following types of personal data:

Information you provide directly:

• Full name, email address, phone number, and nationality
• Passport details (number, expiry date) when required for tour bookings
• Billing and payment information (processed securely through our payment providers)
• Special requirements (dietary needs, medical conditions, mobility limitations)
• Communication records (emails, contact form messages)

Information collected automatically:

• IP address, browser type, and operating system
• Pages visited, time spent on pages, and referral sources
• Language and currency preferences
• Cookies and similar tracking technologies (see Section 5)

3. How We Use Your Information

We use your personal data for the following purposes:

• Processing bookings: To confirm reservations, arrange tours, coordinate with service partners, and issue booking documents.
• Communication: To send booking confirmations, pre-trip information, itinerary updates, and respond to your inquiries.
• Service improvement: To analyze usage patterns, improve our website and tour offerings, and personalize your experience.
• Marketing: With your consent, to send newsletters, promotions, and information about new tours (you can unsubscribe at any time).
• Legal obligations: To comply with Turkish tax regulations, tourism laws, and other legal requirements.
• Safety and security: To protect the rights, property, and safety of Via Turquia, our customers, and our partners.

4. Data Sharing

We may share your personal data with the following parties, strictly as needed to provide our services:

• Tour partners: Hotels, restaurants, local guides, and activity providers who are part of your booked tour itinerary.
• Transport providers: Airlines, bus companies, and transfer services as required for your tour arrangements.
• Payment processors: Secure third-party payment providers for processing your transactions.

We do not sell, rent, or trade your personal data to third parties for marketing purposes.

We may disclose your data when required by law, court order, or government authority, or to protect the rights, safety, or property of Via Turquia or others.

5. Cookies & Tracking

Our website uses cookies and similar technologies to enhance your browsing experience. We use the following types of cookies:

• Essential cookies: Required for the website to function properly (session management, security).
• Preference cookies: Store your language and currency preferences so you don't have to set them each visit.
• Analytics cookies: Help us understand how visitors use our website, which pages are most popular, and how we can improve (e.g., Google Analytics).

You can control and manage cookies through your browser settings. Disabling certain cookies may affect the functionality of our website.

6. Data Security

We implement appropriate technical and organizational measures to protect your personal data against unauthorized access, alteration, disclosure, or destruction. These measures include SSL/TLS encryption for data in transit, encrypted storage for sensitive information, access controls limiting data access to authorized personnel only, and regular security assessments of our systems.

7. Your Rights

Under the Turkish Personal Data Protection Law (KVKK) and the GDPR (for EU residents), you have the following rights regarding your personal data:

• Right of access: Request information about what personal data we hold about you.
• Right to rectification: Request correction of inaccurate or incomplete data.
• Right to erasure: Request deletion of your personal data, subject to legal retention obligations.
• Right to data portability: Receive your personal data in a structured, commonly used format.
• Right to object: Object to the processing of your data for marketing purposes.
• Right to withdraw consent: Withdraw previously given consent at any time.

To exercise any of these rights, please contact us at info@viaturquia.com. We will respond to your request within 30 days.

8. Data Retention

We retain your personal data for the following periods:

• Booking and transaction data: 5 years from the date of the tour, as required by Turkish commercial and tax regulations.
• Communication records: 2 years from the last communication.
• Marketing consent and newsletter subscriptions: Until you withdraw your consent or unsubscribe.
• Website analytics data: 26 months (anonymized).

After the retention period expires, your data will be securely deleted or anonymized.

9. Children's Privacy

Our services are not directed at individuals under the age of 18. Minors may only book and participate in our tours with the consent and supervision of a parent or legal guardian. We do not knowingly collect personal data from children under 18 without parental consent. If we become aware that we have collected data from a minor without proper consent, we will take steps to delete that information promptly.

10. International Data Transfers

Your personal data is primarily stored and processed in the Republic of Turkey. In some cases, your data may be transferred to countries outside Turkey (for example, when sharing information with international hotel chains or airlines for your booking). In such cases, we ensure that appropriate safeguards are in place in accordance with KVKK and GDPR requirements to protect your data.

11. Changes to This Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time to reflect changes in our practices or legal requirements. Any significant changes will be posted on this page with an updated "Last updated" date. We encourage you to review this policy periodically. Continued use of our website and services after changes constitutes acceptance of the updated policy.

12. AI Chat Assistant

Our website offers an AI chat assistant. If you use it, we process:

• What you write in the chat and the assistant's replies, together with the pages you viewed during that visit, your language, and a one-way hash of your IP address — we do not store the address itself.
• The trip details you give us — name, email address, phone number, country, travel dates and party size — so that we can quote a tour and, if you ask for it, create a booking request.

Our AI provider: to produce the replies, your messages and the context above are sent to Z.ai (Zhipu AI), which processes them on our behalf and on our instructions. Please do not type payment card numbers into the chat; numbers that look like a card are automatically masked before anything is stored or sent.

Our sales team: conversations are forwarded to our team's internal Telegram workspace, together with a Turkish translation, so that a person can follow up on your request.

Email verification: before a booking request is created from a chat we email you a six-digit code and a link. Only hashes of that code and that link are stored, never the code itself.

Retention: chat conversations, their messages and their verification records are deleted 12 months after the last message. Messages already forwarded to our team's internal workspace, and any booking or enquiry created from the conversation, are not affected by that deletion and follow their own retention — a booking keeps the period described in Section 8.

We rely on our legitimate interest in answering enquiries and, where you ask us to prepare a booking, on the steps necessary before entering into a contract. You can object to this processing or ask for your chat records to be deleted using the contact details in Section 13.

13. Contact Information

For any questions, concerns, or requests regarding this Privacy Policy or the handling of your personal data, please contact our data protection team:

• United Steps Istanbul Tourism (operating as Via Turquia)
• Tourism license: #12660
• Istanbul, Türkiye
• info@viaturquia.com
• viaturquia.com