Hostelworld.com

Hostelworld Cookies Policy

At Hostelworld.com, we use cookies (omb nomb nomb!) on our websites and mobile applications to make sure your experience is as perfect as it can be. But we also want to be sure you understand what kind of data we are gathering when you book accommodation or experiences with us and how you are always in control.

What is a cookie anyway?

When you return to browse the same website in the future, the data stored in the cookie can be retrieved by the website to notify the website of your previous activity so it can deliver a more user-friendly service - for example, remembering previous purchases or account login details. Cookies were designed to be a reliable mechanism for websites to remember the state of the website or activity the user had taken in the past. This can include clicking particular buttons, logging in, or a record of which pages were visited by the user.

Perhaps most importantly, authentication cookies are the most common method used by web servers to know whether you are logged in or not, and which account you are logged in under. Without such a mechanism, the website would not know whether to send a page containing sensitive information, or require you to authenticate yourself by logging-in.

Types of cookies we eat …. eh we mean use!

Like most websites, Hostelworld’s online channels and applications (apps) collect some information about you (e.g., information on IP addresses, browsers, internet service providers, referring pages, exit pages, operating systems, date stamps, time stamps and clickstream data). This information won’t be linked to any other information we collect about you unless you have consented to it. Both we and our third-party tracking partners use browser storage, app storage, cookies, pixels, beacons, scripts and tags to analyse trends, administer our sites, track user movement through our sites and collect demographic information about our overall user base. We may receive reports on these from our third-party tracking partners on an individual and aggregate (i.e., anonymous) basis and those partners may combine that information with other information they have collected from you. At Hostelworld.com, we use three varieties of cookies to optimise your website experience:

Required cookies
Functional cookies
Advertising cookies

These cookies are a mixture of first party cookies, which we set ourselves, and third party cookies, which are set by other websites.

What our cookies do

We use cookies across our websites and mobile applications to provide the following functions

Personalization – For example, your language preference is remembered.
Session management - To ensure that your session is routed to the correct system within the Hostelworld infrastructure for the duration of your visit.
Usage Tracking - Hostelworld use Omniture web analytics / Google Analytics solution to provide analysis of a users’ ongoing usage of the website. This facilitates ongoing improvements to the website.
AB Testing / multivariate testing - We can display multiple versions of a page to you to assess which generates the best customer experience for you.
Advertising - Display advertising content depending on location, language, and your past browsing history.

Required Cookies

We use a number of cookies which are required in order to allow you to access our websites, to move between pages and to receive services which you have requested. These cookies are required to enable core site functionality and are therefore always enabled. These cookies will remember your selected country and language, track your movement on and usage of our site for statistical purposes and store whether you are logged in or not. We won’t ask for your consent to place these cookies because we have a legitimate purpose for setting them. The following are examples of some of the required cookies which we use:

Service	Function	Example Cookie Details	Cookie Type
Load Balancer	We use multiple servers to ensure that our users receive the best possible experience when browsing our websites, even when we are experiencing high levels of traffic. This cookie is required to route your session to the correct server.	All these cookies are prefixed with ""NSC_""	First Party
PHP Session ID	We use the PHP scripting language to create our websites. The PHP Session ID Cookie is required for PHP code to function.	PHPSESSID, psid	First Party
Credit Card Processing	We use cookies to facilitate the processing of credit cards when you make a booking through the website.	_k	First Party

Functional Cookies

We use functional cookies which are entirely optional and allow us to remember your preferences and experiences on our sites. For example, cookies save you the trouble of selecting your language or currency every time you access the website and recall your customisation preferences. We also use functional cookies to analyse how our visitors use our websites and to monitor website performance. This allows us to provide a high quality experience by customising our offering and quickly identifying and fixing any issues that arise. For example, we might use performance cookies to keep track of which pages are most popular, which method of linking between pages is most effective, and to determine why some pages are receiving error messages. The following are examples of the types of functionality cookies which we use:

Service	Function	Example Cookie Details	Cookie Type
Google Analytics	This is a secondary customer usage service to Adobe Site Catalyst.	All these cookies are prefixed with ""_utm""	First Party
Hostelworld Site Language	When you indicate that you would like one of our websites to be displayed in a different language we use this cookie to record that preference.	lang	First Party
Hostelworld Site Currency	When you indicate that you would like to use a particular currency with one of our websites we use this cookie to record that preference.	HostelWorldCurrency, HostelsComCurrency	First Party
Liveperson.net	We provide a service whereby you can contact a customer service representative through our websites. These cookies enable that service to operate.	HumanClickSiteContainerID_18146098, HumanClickKEY, HumanClickACTIVE	Third Party

Advertising Cookies

Hostelworld, our partners and advertisers use cookies to display advertisements that we believe are relevant to you and your interests. Third Party advertisers and partners may analyse data they collect about your use of the Hostelworld website, through first and third-party cookies, in order to serve adverts to you on the Hostelworld website or on other third party websites. We also work with advertisers in order to display Hostelworld adverts on third party websites, based on cookies set on your visit to the Hostelworld website. Advertisers may also use information about your previous web activity to tailor the adverts which are displayed on the Hostelworld website. Advertising cookies may also be used to track your responses to particular adverts, which helps advertisers to ensure that you see the most relevant advertisements in future, both on Hostelworld websites and on third party websites. Those partners (e.g., Facebook and Google) may combine that information with other information they have collected from you. The following are examples of the types of targeting/advertising cookies which we use:

Service	Function	Example Cookie Details	Cookie Type
PPC Tracking /App Tracking	When we advertise on external websites we sometimes pay for these advertisements on the basis of how many clicks are made on the adverts which lead to users visiting our websites or installing our apps (this is known as Pay Per Click advertising). We use these cookies to allow reporting of customer activity on the site and to track app installations and in-app conversions.	VisitorSource, VisitorNo,LB, Cookie_PPCSource, Cookie_PPCSOURCE30days, LB_PPCSource*, PPCVisitno	First Party and Third Party
Google Analytics	We use certain of the Google Analytics advertising features to allow third parties to serve adverts to you when you are on other sites that may be relevant to you based on your use of the Hostelworld site. This is done on an anonymised basis, using non-personally identifiable information. We may also use Google Analytics advertising features to help ascertain how many times our adverts are seen on other sites, and to be provided with aggregated and anonymised details about the demographics and interests of users of Hostelworld.	All these cookies are prefixed with ""_utm""	First Party
Commission Junction	We partner with a number of affiliates who refer users to our websites. This is an example of one of the cookies which we use to track these referrals.	HWCommissionJunction	First Party
DoubleClick	We display adverts on the website that we and our advertisers believe are relevant to you. These cookies may also be used by advertisers to allow third parties to serve adverts to you when you are on other sites. These adverts may be adapted to be relevant to you based on your use of the Hostelworld site. This is done on an anonymised basis, using non-personally identifiable information. The DoubleClick cookies are an example of some of the cookies which we use in connection with these advertising services.	Id, mc,_drt, uid, pluto2	Third Party
Add This Widget	Some of the services on our website are supplied by third parties, such as the ""Add this button which allows the sharing of pages from our websites on social networks. The third party service also sets cookies which track the usage of the service and may be used to deliver advertisements which are of interest to you.	Uid, _atuvc, dt, loc, uit, psc	Third Party

What about your data privacy?

We respect your privacy. Read how to manage and control what information we collect from you in our Data Protection Notice.

For how long are these cookies live?

To keep your choices, cookies are stored on your device for up to 800 days since your last visit. Some cookies are set by third party media and advertising partners, as well as other service providers.

What if I do not want cookies?

Required cookies are essential for our website and you cannot opt out of them, but you can delete required cookies after use – see how below.

How to manage cookies

The cookies are placed on your device. This means that we cannot delete them for you. You must do that yourself in the way prescribed by your specific device. If you are on a website operated by Hostelworld.com, you can also avoid cookies being placed by adjusting the browser settings in your device. If you are using an app published by Hostelworld.com, please note that cookies set in an app work in a different way and you will have to control this via your device directly. Real browser cookies are set to expire. Similar types of technologies like local storage on your device do not have expiration built-in but must be deleted by you. We have linked to instructions on how to adjust/delete cookies on some of the more common devices below.

If you do not want your browser to accept cookies, you can turn off the cookie acceptance option in your browser settings. For further information about how to turn off cookie acceptance please refer to the “Help” function in your browser.

If you would like to opt out of the Google Analytics features mentioned above, details of how to opt-out are available here.

Hostelworld works with Flashtalking to serve advertising creative. Hostelworld may place 1st party cookies on your device to provide more relevant advertising. To opt-out of Flashtalking cookies please click here. These cookies are anonymous and will not collect personally identifiable information.

Please note that disabling cookie support may prevent this website from functioning properly and you may not be able to fully utilise all of its features and services.

Please find examples of guides on how to block cookies and how to remove cookies in the various browsers for PCs and Macs:

Further Information

For further information about cookies generally and their usage, please visit AllAboutCookies and YourOnlineChoices.

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