Privacy Policy

The Royal Hotel takes your privacy seriously. This policy explains what personal information we collect, how we use it, who we share it with, and the rights you have over it. It applies to bookings made directly with us, stays at the hotel, and use of our website at royalhotelskegness.co.uk.

1. Who we are

The Royal Hotel, Skegness is operated by The Empire Heritage Hospitality Ltd (“we”, “us”, “our”), the data controller for the information described in this policy.

• Registered office: Royal Hotel, Drummond Road, Skegness, Lincolnshire, PE25 3EH
• Company number: 16921780
• ICO registration: TBC
• Email: info@theroyalhotelskegness.co.uk
• Phone: 01754 762301

2. What information we collect

We only collect what we need to take a booking, look after you during your stay, and meet our legal obligations. That includes:

• Booking details - your name, address, phone number, email address, arrival and departure dates, room and rate choice, and any special requests (dietary, accessibility, occasion).
• Payment information - card details are entered directly into our payment provider’s secure form. We do not see or store full card numbers ourselves; we receive only a transaction reference and the last four digits.
• Information you provide during your stay - room account charges, any incident reports, correspondence with reception.
• Website information - basic technical data your browser sends automatically (IP address, browser type, pages visited, referring site). This is logged by our hosting provider for security and performance purposes.
• Correspondence - emails, messages and call notes you exchange with us before, during or after your stay.

3. How we use your information

We process your personal information for the following purposes, on the lawful bases set out below:

• To take and manage your booking - including confirmation emails, payment processing, and pre-arrival communication. Lawful basis: performance of the contract you have with us.
• To provide and improve our service during your stay - including honouring special requests, addressing complaints, and meeting health, safety and accessibility needs. Lawful basis: performance of contract, and our legitimate interest in running the hotel well.
• To comply with legal obligations - including tax and accounting records, statutory health and safety requirements, and lawful requests from public authorities. Lawful basis: legal obligation.
• To respond to enquiries - whether you contact us by phone, email, or a form on our website. Lawful basis: our legitimate interest in answering you, and your consent where applicable.
• To send occasional marketing - only if you have explicitly opted in. You can unsubscribe at any time using the link in our emails. Lawful basis: consent.

4. Who we share your information with

We do not sell your personal information. We share it only with the service providers we rely on to run the hotel and the website, and only to the extent each provider needs to do its job:

• Stripe - processes card payments. Stripe is a PCI-DSS compliant payment processor. See stripe.com/privacy.
• Resend - delivers our booking confirmation and transactional emails. See resend.com/legal/privacy-policy.
• Cloudflare - hosts our website and serves images, providing security and performance protection. See cloudflare.com/privacypolicy.
• Google - we embed Google Maps on our contact page and load Google Fonts site-wide. See policies.google.com/privacy.
• Our accountants and auditors - to prepare statutory accounts and meet tax obligations.
• Public authorities - where required by law (for example, HMRC, the police acting under proper authority, or local environmental health).

Some of these providers may transfer your information outside the UK. Where they do, they use Standard Contractual Clauses or another recognised safeguard under UK GDPR to keep your information protected.

5. How long we keep your information

We keep your information only for as long as we need it. The main retention periods are:

• Booking and financial records - 7 years from the end of the financial year, to meet HMRC requirements.
• Correspondence - up to 2 years from your last contact, unless it relates to an unresolved matter.
• Marketing data - until you unsubscribe, or until 3 years have passed since your last interaction with us.
• Website logs - up to 30 days, retained by our hosting provider for security purposes.

After these periods we delete your information or anonymise it so it can no longer be linked to you.

6. Your rights

Under UK GDPR you have the right to:

• Ask us what information we hold about you (a Subject Access Request).
• Ask us to correct anything that is inaccurate.
• Ask us to delete your information, where we are not required to keep it.
• Object to us processing your information, or ask us to restrict how we use it.
• Ask for a copy of your information in a portable format.
• Withdraw consent for marketing at any time.
• Complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) at ico.org.uk if you believe we have mishandled your information.

To exercise any of these rights, email us at info@theroyalhotelskegness.co.uk or write to us at the address above. We will respond within one month.

7. Cookies

Our website uses a small number of cookies. We do not use advertising or analytics cookies that track you across other sites. The cookies we do use fall into two groups:

• Strictly necessary cookies - set by our payment provider during checkout to keep your session secure. These cannot be disabled.
• Embedded content - Google Maps on our contact page, and Google Fonts site-wide, may set cookies from Google. You can block these in your browser if you prefer.

You can clear or block cookies in your browser at any time. Doing so may affect parts of the booking flow.

8. Changes to this policy

We may update this policy from time to time. When we do we will change the “last updated” date at the top of the page. Material changes will be highlighted on the website.

9. Contact us

If you have any questions about this policy or about how we handle your information, please get in touch:

• Email: info@theroyalhotelskegness.co.uk
• Phone: 01754 762301
• Post: The Royal Hotel, South Parade, Skegness, Lincolnshire, PE25 3EH