Introduction: Benchmark Hospitality International has a strong commitment
to providing excellent service to all of our customers, including respecting
their concerns about privacy. We understand that visitors to our website
may have questions about how this website collects and uses information.
We have prepared this statement to inform you of the privacy principles
that govern benchmarkhospitality.com (including all Benchmark managed
individual property websites).
This statement contains numerous general and technical details about
the steps we take to respect your privacy concerns. The bottom line is
that meeting your needs and expectations form the foundation of everything
we do - including protecting your privacy.
If you have any questions about this privacy statement or privacy concerns
please send an e-mail to privacy@benchmarkmanagement.com
or send a letter to:
Benchmark Hospitality International
Att: Privacy Protection
4 Waterway Square, Suite 300
The Woodlands, TX 77380-1719
Browsing: This website does not collect personally identifiable information
from your computer when you browse the site. This means that, unless you
voluntarily and knowingly provide us with personally identifiable information,
we will not know your name, your e-mail address, or any other personally
identifiable information.
Internet Protocol (IP) Address: An IP address is a number that is automatically
assigned to your computer when you browse the Internet. When users request
a page from our site, our servers log the user's current IP address. We
use IP addresses to help diagnose problems. We do not link IP addresses
to any personally identifiable information about you.
Cookies: Our website uses "cookie" technology. "Cookies"
are strings of text that a website may store on a user's computer. Our
website uses cookies but only requires them in the online reservation
process. Cookies enable our website to keep track of your preferences
and activities relating to the website. Our website creates session cookies
for each visit in order to facilitate your visit. The session cookie expires
at the end of the session.
* Use of Cookies and E-Mails - We use a third party service provider
to send marketing e-mails on behalf of Benchmark. There are no cookies
in the e-mail. However, when an e-mail recipient clicks on a link to the
Benchmark Hospitality International website included in the e-mail, a
"persistent" cookie is placed on the user's computer. This cookie
is used to measure the effectiveness of our e-mail marketing efforts and
better understand how our users navigate through the site. The cookie
set by our service provider will remain on your hard drive 30 days after
the last time you clicked on the coded link in the e-mail, or until you
delete it.
* Use of Cookies for Advertising - we use third party service providers
to serve and host our advertisements. These third parties use persistent
cookies to track the number of times our site is accessed and whether
the site was accessed from the advertisement. The cookies generated from
the advertisements do not contain personally identifiable information
and may remain on your hard drive three or more years unless deleted by
you.
The third party service providers mentioned above are contractually bound
not to use any information they gather for any purpose other than providing
services to us. Cookies do not corrupt or damage your computer or computer
files. In addition, we do not use cookies to gather information concerning
your visits to non-Benchmark websites. If you do not wish to receive these
cookies, you may set your browser to reject the cookies (consult the instructions
for your particular browser on how to do this), although doing so may
affect your ability to perform certain transactions on our website.
Pixel Tags: The third party service providers mentioned above serve and
host Benchmark advertisements on other sites. To track the effectiveness
of Benchmark Hospitality International advertisements on other sites,
benchmarkhospitality.com uses pixel tags (also known as "clear gifs",
"beacon gifs", "1-by-1 gifs", or "web bugs").
Pixel tags are not visible to the user of the site and consist of a few
lines of computer coding. If you are visiting benchmarkhospitality.com
from an advertisement on another site, the pixel tag references the cookie
you received when you clicked on the advertisement. The pixel tag then
registers this activity with the third party advertising company to allow
us to count the number of times an advertisement is accessed. In addition,
we also measure the reservations generated from a particular ad. At no
time is personally identifiable information about you or your reservation
collected by the third party advertising company, nor is any tracking
information generated from the pixel tag allowed to be used by them for
any other purpose other than to report website activity to us or allow
us to better target future interactive advertising.
Our third party service providers may use pixel tags in Benchmark marketing
e-mails that help us send the e-mail in a format you can read, to allow
us to know which e-mails you act upon and to better target the content
of future e-mails. In addition, we track the aggregate number of e-mails
read and whether any of the links in the e-mail were accessed. No other
information is collected or used from pixel tags.
Information We Collect: When we need to collect personally identifiable
information from you, we will ask you to voluntarily supply us with the
information we need. For example, if you would like to make a reservation
at one of our hotels, we will ask you for information such as name, address,
telephone number, e-mail address, credit card number, and room preference
to process your reservation. We may use your e-mail address to send a
confirmation and, if necessary, might use the other information to contact
you for help to process the reservation. The same types of information
would be requested to complete a gift certificate transaction. As indicated
below (see E-Mail section), we may also use your e-mail address to notify
you about special offers and promotions.
Securing the Transmission and Storage of Information: When we ask you
for credit card data when making a reservation or purchasing a gift certificate,
it is transferred over a Secured Sockets Layer (SSL) line provided you
are using a SSL enabled browser such as Microsoft Internet Explorer or
Netscape Navigator. We also use SSL on other select pages where you would
enter personally identifiable information. This ensures that your information
is encrypted as it travels over the Internet. This secure mode is enabled
before any such information is transmitted from your computer. You will
know you are in secure mode when the padlock or key icon in the lower
right-hand or left-hand corner of the computer screen appears in the locked
position. In addition, when accessing a secure server, the first characters
of the site address will change from "http" to "https."
After information reaches Benchmark it is stored on a secure server that
resides behind firewalls designed to block unauthorized access from outside
the Company.
E-Mail: It is our intention to only send you e-mail communications that
will be useful to you and that you want to receive. When you make a reservation
and provide your e-mail address, we will occasionally contact you via
e-mail and provide information about special offers and promotions that
may be of interest to you. These communications will relate to Benchmark
Hospitality International offers and/or the promotions of select, reputable
third parties with whom Benchmark has a strategic marketing relationship
because they offer products or services that we believe would of interest
to you. We use a third party e-mail service provider to send e-mails.
This service provider is prohibited from using your e-mail address for
any purpose other than to send Benchmark related e-mail. Every time you
receive e-mail you will be provided the choice to opt-out of future e-mails
by following the instructions provided in the e-mail, or you may opt-out
by updating your online profile.
Benchmark Hospitality International Use of Information: We treat the
information you provide to us as confidential information; it is, accordingly,
subject to our company's security procedures and strict corporate policies
regarding protection and use of confidential information. Because laws
applicable to personal information vary by country, our hotels or other
business operations may put in place additional measures that vary depending
on the applicable legal requirements. Information collected on the sites
covered by this privacy statement, which are listed in the first paragraph,
is generally processed and stored in the United States.
The personally identifiable information you provide to us for making
a reservation is made available to the applicable hotel for the purpose
of meeting your reservation request. If you cancel your reservation, the
information is stored for recordkeeping purposes only and is not accessed
again. After making a reservation or completing your stay at a Benchmark
hotel, unless you tell us otherwise, the information you provide may be
used by us for direct marketing of a Benchmark hotel, other Benchmark
products or the products of select, reputable third parties with whom
Benchmark has a strategic marketing relationship because they offer products
or services that we believe would of interest to you. Benchmark Hospitality
International may use the services of a third party mail house for the
sole purpose of mailing materials.
Disclosure of Information to Third Parties: Benchmark Hospitality International
prohibits the sale or transfer of personal information to entities outside
of the Benchmark Hospitality International for their use without your
approval.
How to Change Your Information: The personally identifiable information
collected through this website is not accessible to you. If you believe
the information you voluntarily provided us is not correct, or has changed,
please send an email message to webmarketing@benchmarkmanagement.com
explaining the correction or change and provide any relevant information.
Links to Other Sites: If you choose to leave this Benchmark site via
links to other non-Benchmark websites, including those of advertisers,
Benchmark is not responsible for the privacy policies or content of those
sites, nor is Benchmark responsible for the cookies those sites use.
Legal Issues: This is a United States website and is subject to United
States law. Benchmark will disclose personally identifiable information
without your permission when required by law, or in good faith belief
that such action is necessary to investigate or protect against harmful
activities to Benchmark guests, visitors, associates, or property (including
this site), or to others. As mentioned above, laws related to personal
identifiable information vary by country. For example, personally identifiable
information collected in the European Union is subject to the EU Data
Protection Directive.
Privacy Policy Effective Date: The privacy policy is in effect at the
time of each visit to our site. Please check our privacy policy each time
you visit our website if you are concerned about how your information
will be used.
Benchmarkhospitality.com Privacy Statement Changes: In the future, we
may need to change the privacy statement for benchmarkhospitality.com.
All changes will be made here so that you will always know what information
we gather, how we might use that information and whether we will disclose
it to anyone.
