Visit Wales Tourist Attractions Survey 2021/22 and contact database: privacy notice

Visit Wales, part of Welsh Government, undertakes annual surveys of visits to Tourist Attractions in Wales.  This aim of this data collection is to:

• determine and report visit numbers to attractions throughout Wales and identify trends and undertake comparative analysis
• cover visit figures, operations, revenue, marketing and human resources
• analyse data according to attraction categories, the four economic regions of Wales, and admission charging policy (free vs. paid)

Visit Wales holds information on tourist attractions currently operating in Wales on the Visit Wales Attractions Database.  Third party research agencies are commissioned to conduct annual data collections, and the database is provided to the current contractor in order to contact visitor attractions to collect data.   

The Welsh Government has commissioned Strategic Research & Insight to conduct the tourist attractions survey relating to tourist attraction performance in Wales between 2019 and 2022.  As part of this data collection, Strategic Research & Insight will be gathering information through online questionnaires and telephone follow-ups during the period 2020 to 2022.

The Welsh Government is the data controller for the research. The Welsh Government will receive an anonymised copy of the survey data collected by Strategic Research & Insight and separately any amendments or additions to  contact data for attractions in Wales.

The information collected during the project will be included in reports published on the Welsh Government website.

Your participation in this research is completely voluntary.  However, the purpose of this survey is to monitor trends in the tourist attraction sector in Wales in order to provide a greater understanding of the sector to both industry and public sector organisations and to disseminate the findings in a useful and valuable way to the wider industry.

The contact for this research at Strategic Research & Insight is:

Michael Davies
Email: mike@strategic-research.co.uk
Telephone: 029 2040 4344

Personal data is defined under the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) as ‘any information relating to an identifiable person who can be directly or indirectly identified by reference to an identifier’.

Your business or organisation contact details are held by Welsh Government on the Visit Wales Attractions Database. This is either because of past participation in the survey or because they have been added in the current survey. Contact details are added where an attraction was identified by Strategic Research & Insight from publicly available information and you agreed to take part in the survey. Contact details are a mix of generic business contacts and individual contact details within a business and are limited to name, email address and phone number.

Where you have taken part in previous surveys, the contact details have been provided to Strategic Research & Insight by the Welsh Government in order to conduct the Visitor Attractions Survey. Strategic Research & Insight will only use your email address and telephone number for the purposes of the Tourist Attraction Survey and updating the Visit Wales Attractions Database.

A link to the survey will be sent by email. Your participation is voluntary and if you do not wish to take part or be sent reminders then please reply to the invitation email and your details will be removed from the Visit Wales Attractions Database. If you would prefer to undertake the survey by phone then reply to the invitation email and Strategic Research & Insight will arrange a suitable time to carry out the survey over the phone.

You will not be asked to provide any further personal information as part of the survey. However, if your contact details are out of date, or you provide your individual contact details in place of a generic business contact, then these will be updated and provided to the Welsh Government to ensure the Visit Wales Attractions Database is up to date. 

Welsh Government will hold a copy of the Visit Wales Attractions Database and will provide this to the current contractor to undertake the annual survey. Inclusion on the database is voluntary and contact information will only be used for invitations to participate in the Tourist Attractions Survey.  If you do not wish to take part or be sent reminders in the future then you can either reply to an invitation email for the survey or at any point you can contact Visit Wales using the Welsh Government contact provided in Further Information and your details will be removed.

If you raise a query or complaint as part of the survey and provide personal data requesting a response, the researcher will forward the request only to the relevant official and subsequently delete it from the research data.

The lawful basis for processing information in this data collection exercise and database is our public task; that is, exercising our official authority to undertake the core role and functions of the Welsh Government.

Participation is completely voluntary. Research studies such as this and the maintenance of an up to date database are important for the Welsh Government to collect information and actionable evidence about its ability to deliver government priorities. The information collected in this research, for example, might be used to:

• decide where to invest in and improve tourism related facilities
• decide whether to support new tourism development and infrastructure
• decide on where to focus marketing of Wales as a tourism destination

Personal information provided to Strategic Research & Insight is processed in accordance with ISO 9001 and UK GDPR, always stored on a secure server and transferred to or from the Welsh Government via secure file transfer. The data can only be accessed by a limited number of researchers working on this project.  Strategic Research & Insight will only use this data for conducting the Visit Wales attractions survey.  Strategic Research & Insight has cyber essentials certification.

Personal data provided to Welsh Government as part of the Tourist Attraction Database is held on secure servers, and for this project a folder has been created that has access restricted only to the immediate research team. Your contact details and any personal data you choose to provide will be stored in this restricted folder.

When conducting surveys, Strategic Research & Insight use a survey software programme called Snap Surveys. We have ensured that Snap Surveys is UK GDPR compliant and meets our expectations in terms of the security of any data collected via the software. All data are processed within the UK.

Strategic Research & Insight has procedures to deal with any suspected data security breaches. If a suspected breach occurs, Strategic Research & Insight will report this to the Welsh Government who will notify you and any applicable regulator where we are legally required to do so, and the ICO where appropriate.

Strategic Research & Insight will use the information gathered to produce a report that will be published on the Welsh Government website. This report will not include any information that could be used to identify individual people, only attractions will be identifiable (for example annual visit numbers to each attraction and entry prices where provided).

Strategic Research & Insight will hold contact data during the contract period, from 2020 to end of 2022 and any personal data not already removed during data collection will be deleted by Strategic Research & Insight within three months after the end of the contract.

Strategic Research & Insight will provide Welsh Government with an anonymised version of the survey data as well as an updated list of attraction contact details to update the Visit Wales Attractions Database.

Welsh Government will hold a copy of the Visit Wales Attractions Database and will retain contact details while attractions are still active or until you ask to be removed.

Under UK GDPR, you have the following rights in relation to the personal information you provide as part of this survey, you have the right:

• to access a copy of your own data
• for us to rectify inaccuracies in that data
• to object to or restrict processing (in certain circumstances)
• for your data to be ‘erased’ (in certain circumstances)
• to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) who is our independent regulator for data protection

You can contact the Information Commissioner’s Office at:

Information Commissioner
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF
Telephone: 01625 545 745 or 0303 123 1113
Website: Information Commissioner’s Office

If you have any further questions about how the data provided as part of this study will be used by Visit Wales and other parts of the Welsh Government or wish to exercise your rights using the UK General Data Protection Regulation, please contact:

Jennifer Velu
Email: tourismresearch@gov.wales
Telephone: 0300 025 0459

The Welsh Government’s Data Protection Officer can be contacted at:

Welsh Government
Cathays Park
Cardiff
CF10 3NQ

Email: dataprotectionofficer@gov.wales