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Cookies Policy

Cookies Policy

This Cookies Policy relates to the use of cookies on any websites owned and/or operated by the British Tourist Authority (“BTA”, “we” or “us”), a statutory body incorporated under the Development of Tourism Act 1969 including websites made available to you under the “Visit Britain” and “VisitEngland” brands.

Cookies and you

When we provide online services, we want to make them easy, useful and reliable. This sometimes involves placing small amounts of information on your device, for example, computer or mobile phone. These include small files known as “cookies”. They cannot be used to identify you personally.

What are cookies?

These pieces of information are used to improve online services for you through, for example:

  • Enabling a service to recognise your device so you don’t have to give the same information several times during one task 
  • Recognising that you may already have  been given a username and password so you don’t need to do it for every web page requested 
  • Measuring how many people are using services, so they can be made easier to use and to ensure there is enough capacity for a fast service   
  • Analysing anonymised data to help us understand how people interact with us so we can make them better

Some cookies are essential for the correct working of particular services requested by you, for example, the shopping basket and checkout on our online retail shopping site(s). When you place an order with us on our online retail shopping site(s), certain cookies are required for your transaction to go through and your order to be registered. (You can read more about what type of cookies we use and where they are used here.) 

We  have relationships with other suppliers and partners which are selected very carefully and constantly monitored. These suppliers and partners may set their own cookies during your visit to show you different products or services based on what you seem to be looking for.

First party cookies  (cookies set by us)

Cookies set by “VisitBritain”/”VisitEngland’s web domains are known as ‘first-party’ cookies. Some are necessary to the functionality of the sites, others provide information to us that we analyse to monitor and improve the sites. Our cookies do not store details such as your name, address, telephone number,payment information or anything else that make you personally identifiable to us. Typically, the cookies set by us generate a random, unique number to store information about a user The cookies are simply used to record the areas of  a site that you visit and for how long. This helps us to monitor the usability of our website and to improve its quality. If you would like to block, restrict or delete cookies from our sites, you can use your browser to do so. Each browser is different, so you may need to refer to the ‘Help’ section of your browser to find out how to alter your cookie preferences. To find out where we are using cookies, click here. 

How to manage cookies

If you want to disable cookies in your browser, you can set your browser accordingly, using its menu bar. You should be aware that, if cookies aren’t enabled on your computer, we are unable to personalise and improve our service to you.

You can find out more about opting out of cookies and safeguarding your online experience by visiting the Network Advertising Initiative website (please note that we are not responsible for the content of external websites).

To find out how to enable/disable cookies, please click here

Third-party cookies

When you visit our websites you may notice some cookies that are not related to us. When you visit one of our pages containing embedded content, such as a video hosted on YouTube, you may be sent cookies from these third party websites. We have no control over the setting of these cookies set by third parties. If cookies concern you, it’s best to check the third-party websites for more information about their cookies and how to manage them.

Visit Britain Website Cookies

Below is a list of cookies identified in the VisitBritain site

Cookie nameOwnerDescriptionExpiry
_uetsidBingThis cookie is used by Bing to gather anonymous information on how visitors are using our websiteExpiry +24H
_uetvidBingThis is a cookie utilised by Microsoft Bing Ads and is a tracking cookie. It allows us to engage with a user that has previously visited our website.Expiry +16days
MUIDBingThese third-party cookies allow us to identify which of our advertisements you have clicked on. Each individual advertiser uses its own tracking cookies and the data taken is not confidential or interchangeableExpiry +1year
_gidGoogle analyticsThis cookie collects information about how visitors use our website. We use the information to compile reports and to help us improve the site. The cookies collect information in an anonymous form, including the number of visitors to our website, where our visitors to our website have come from and the pages they have visited. The information obtained does not identify anyone.Expiry +24Hours
_gaGoogle analyticsThis cookie is used to distinguish unique users by assigning a randomly generated number as a client identifier. It is included in each page request in a site and used to calculate visitor, session and campaign data for the sites analytics reports. By default it is set to expire after 2 years, although this is customisable by website owners.Expiry +2Years
_hjIncludedInPageviewSampleHotjarHotjar is an analytics and feedback tool that we use to understand how our website is used and improve usability. Hotjar sets cookies to help us track behaviour across pages and to control visitor polls. The cookies carry no personally identifiable information.Expiry Approx. 3Min
_hjTLDTestHotjarWhen the Hotjar script executes we try to determine the most generic cookie path we should use, instead of the page hostname. This is done so that cookies can be shared across subdomains (where applicable). To determine this, we try to store the _hjTLDTest cookie for different URL substring alternatives until it fails. After this check, the cookie is removed.Duration of Session
_hjidHotjarHotjar cookie that is set when the customer first lands on a page with the Hotjar script. It is used to persist the Hotjar User ID, unique to that site on the browser. This ensures that behavior in subsequent visits to the same site will be attributed to the same user ID.Expiry +1 Year
_hjAbsoluteSessionInProgressHotjarhis cookie is used to detect the first pageview session of a user. This is a True/False flag set by the cookie.Expiry +30mins
_vwo_uuidVisual Website OptimiserThese cookies collect information about how visitors interact with the pages on the website. We use the information to compile reports and to help us improve the site. The cookies collect information in an anonymous form. The information obtained does not identify anyone.Expiry +2hours
_vwo_uuid_v2Visual Website OptimiserThese cookies collect information about how visitors interact with the pages on the website. We use the information to compile reports and to help us improve the site. The cookies collect information in an anonymous form. The information obtained does not identify anyone.Expiry +2hours
_fbpFaceBookWhen the Facebook pixel is installed on a website, and the pixel uses first-party cookies, the pixel automatically saves a unique identifier to an _fbp cookie for the website domain if one does not already exist.Expiry +1day
ASP.NET_SessionIdASP.NETis a cookie which is used to identify the users session on the server. The session being an area on the server which can be used to store data in between http requests.Duration of Session
.ASPXAUTHASP.NETThe ASPXAUTH cookie is used to determine if a user is authenticated.Duration of Session
gdprPerformanceVisit Britain SiteThe cookie stores user preferences for permance related cookies as per GDPR requirementsExpiry +1Year
SESSION_CHECKVisit Britain SiteThe cookie is used to store the aspnet session Id on session start it is the subsequently used when adding products to a basket to validate that the person making is is legiimate and not a cross site request forgeryExpiry 24h
gdprFunctionalVisit Britain SiteThe cookie stores user preference for Functional cookies as GDPR requirementsExpiry 1year
1f4e8439-c113-4e81-b2d4-a22800c43603_CartVisit Britain InsiteInsite card cookie. This cookie is used by Insite to track the current cart (Customer Order) of the userExpiry +48h
SC_ANALYTICS_GLOBAL_COOKIESitecoreThis cookie stores details of recently viewed online shop products and is stored for.Expiry 1 year
SC_ANALYTICS_GLOBAL_COOKIESitecoreThis cookie is used to identify how visitors use the site. This information is used to compile reports and to help improve the site. The data is collected in an anonymous form.Duration of session