Data Deletion Instructions

Last Updated: August 7, 2026

This page explains how to ask Booking·Tours (Pty) Ltd ("Booking·Tours", "we", "us") to delete the personal information we hold about you. It applies to the Booking·Tours WhatsApp booking bot — including any operator sub-branded instance of it — as well as our booking pages, operator dashboard, and website at bookingtours.co.za.

You do not need an account, a login, or an app to make a request. Choose whichever option below fits you.

1. What data we may hold

If you have chatted with our WhatsApp booking bot or made a booking, we may hold:

• Your WhatsApp phone number, used to route messages and identify your conversation thread.
• Your message history with the bot.
• Booking details you provided — name, email address, party size, tour selected, and date/time.
• Payment events — transaction status, amount, and reference. Card and banking details are entered directly with our payment gateways and are never stored on our servers.

If you hold a Booking·Tours operator account, we additionally hold your account, business, and payout details. See our Privacy Policy for the full picture.

2. Option A — Delete from WhatsApp (fastest)

In your WhatsApp conversation with the booking bot, send the single word:

DELETE

The bot replies immediately to confirm the request, then processes it. Your message history is permanently redacted, and your name, phone number, email address, and any waiver or custom-field details are erased from the bookings linked to that number. This normally completes within seconds.

The DELETEkeyword works at any point in the conversation — you do not need to be in a particular step, and it still works when the operator has switched the assistant off. The request is also logged to the operator's data-request register so it is auditable.

3. Option B — Delete by email

Email dpo@bookingtours.co.za with:

• The subject line "Data Deletion Request".
• The WhatsApp number (including country code) or the email address you used, so we can locate your records.
• The name of the tour operator you booked with, if you know it.

We may ask one question to verify that the request comes from you before we delete anything — this protects you from someone else deleting your booking.

4. Option C — Operators and account holders

If you have a Booking·Tours operator account, email dpo@bookingtours.co.za from your registered address to request account closure and deletion. You can export your data from the dashboard at any time before you do.

5. What happens next, and how long it takes

• WhatsApp (Option A): processed automatically and normally completed within seconds. You get a confirmation reply in the chat.
• Email (Options B and C): acknowledged within 2 business days and completed within 30 days of a verified request, confirmed to you in writing.
• Erased data is removed from our live systems and rolls out of our encrypted backups within the 30-day backup retention window.
• Every deletion is written to an audit log and to the operator's data-request register, so there is a record that it happened.
• Requests are free of charge.

6. What we may have to keep

South African law requires us to retain certain records even after a deletion request. Where this applies we keep only the minimum, and it is never used to contact or market to you:

• Financial transaction records — invoices and payment records are retained for 5 years to meet SARS record-keeping obligations. Your name, email address, and phone number are stripped from them; only the amounts, dates, and references remain.
• Records tied to an active or disputed booking — retained until that booking is completed or resolved.

Everything else linked to you is erased or irreversibly anonymised — the identifier is replaced with a one-way token that cannot be traced back to you.

7. Where your data sits with a tour operator

When you book a tour, the tour operator is the responsible party (controller) for your booking data, and Booking·Tours acts as their operator (processor). Sending DELETE in a chat erases your data held by the operator you were chatting with. If you have booked with more than one operator that uses Booking·Tours, either send DELETE in each conversation, or email us once at dpo@bookingtours.co.za and we will action it across every operator that holds your data.

8. Stopping messages without deleting

If you only want the messages to stop but would like to keep your booking, reply STOP in the WhatsApp chat instead. That withdraws consent for non-essential messages while leaving an active booking intact.

9. Contact and complaints

Booking·Tours (Pty) Ltd, Cape Town, Western Cape, South Africa.
Data protection & deletion requests: dpo@bookingtours.co.za
General support: support@bookingtours.co.za
Information Officer: Gideon Langenhoven — info@capeweb.co.za

If you are not satisfied with how we handled your request, you may lodge a complaint with the Information Regulator of South Africa, or with your local data protection authority if you are in the EEA or UK.

Related: Privacy Policy · Terms of Service · POPIA compliance