Disclosure of Relationships
As is standard practice, our group of talented and experienced travel writers will often accept hosted stay invitations in order to facilitate more detailed reporting. The economics of travel media do not allow more than a few top-tier magazines to cover their writers’ expenses and those you can now count on one hand. Some forbid writers to accept hosting, but then don’t pay them enough for their work to even cover one night of a hotel. So that leaves only the independently wealthy writers or those who cut corners and do research remotely.
We don’t like either of those options.
So our writers will sometimes stay at hotels at no cost because they are researching a review, with the hotel company comping the room or the local tourism board paying for it. This allows the writer to see what a guest sees instead of doing a quickie property tour that ignores the parts the person giving the tour doesn’t want a writer to see. They can evaluate the service and how hard it is to get a pool chair. They can see if the bed really is comfortable and if the Wi-Fi actually works. They have time to shoot photos or video that help you see what the guests see instead of what a professional photographer with perfect lighting and wide-angle lenses sees.
We will always attempt to be truthful and point out the obvious negatives, whether we paid to stay there or someone else did. Unlike the major escapist magazines, we don’t feel a need to be 100% positive 100% of the time. That’s not reality.
We will disclose any hosting relationship at the end of each review. If you don’t see a statement there, you can assume that the writer paid because he or she was on vacation or it’s a round-up story where a personal visit wasn’t necessary.
We also accept advertising, though most of it is not direct. In other words, the ads are fed by a 3rd-party provider. Others are affiliate ads whereby if you book a hotel through a link you clicked on with us, we get a small commission—but you pay the same price as you would if you just typed that company’s name in your browser.
Privacy Policy
Hotel Scoop takes your privacy seriously. This privacy policy describes what personal information we collect–which is very little–and how we use it.
Direct Information Collection
We do not harvest e-mail addresses from blog comments. We do have an opt-in e-mail newsletter list whereby we communicate with readers once per week. We do not share or sell this information with any third parties. We occasionally run contests whereby entrants supply personal information, including an e-mail address. Any sharing with the contest sponsor will be clearly spelled out in the rules and will be limited to that direct contest sponsor(s) only.
Routine Information Collection
All web servers track basic information about their visitors. This information includes, but is not limited to, IP addresses, browser details, timestamps and referring pages. None of this information can personally identify specific visitors to this site. The information is tracked for routine administration and maintenance purposes.
Cookies and Web Beacons
Where necessary, Hotel Scoop uses cookies to store information about a visitor’s preferences and history in order to better serve the visitor and/or present the visitor with customized content via third parties.
Advertising partners and other third parties may also use cookies, scripts and/or web beacons to track visitors to our site in order to display advertisements and other useful information. Such tracking is done directly by the third parties through their own servers and is subject to their own privacy policies.
Controlling Your Privacy
Note that you can change your browser settings to disable cookies if you have privacy concerns or to delete them each time you close your browser. Disabling cookies for all sites is not recommended as it may interfere with your use of some sites. The best option is to disable or enable cookies on a per-site basis or to delete them regularly. Consult your browser documentation for instructions on how to block cookies and other tracking mechanisms.
Special Note About Google Advertising
Any advertisements served by Google, Inc., and affiliated companies may be controlled using cookies. These cookies allow Google to display ads based on your visits to this site and other sites that use Google advertising services. Learn how to opt out of Google’s cookie usage here: http://www.google.com/policies/privacy/ads/. As mentioned above, any tracking done by Google through cookies and other mechanisms is subject to Google’s own privacy policies.
Contact Information
Concerns or questions can be directed to editor (at) hotel-scoop.com for further clarification.
Affiliate Disclaimer
Please note that Hotel Scoop is not a travel booking site, but has financial relationships with some of the merchants mentioned on the site. Hotel Scoop may be compensated if consumers choose to utilize the links located throughout the content on this site and generate sales for the said merchant. This compensation takes the form of a commission: it does not increase the buyer’s cost beyond what they would pay visiting/booking through said merchant on their own.
Affiliate relationships have no bearing on whether we review a property or not.
Mediavine Programmatic Advertising (Ver 1.1)
The Website works with Mediavine to manage third-party interest-based advertising appearing on the Website. Mediavine serves content and advertisements when you visit the Website, which may use first and third-party cookies. A cookie is a small text file which is sent to your computer or mobile device (referred to in this policy as a “device”) by the web server so that a website can remember some information about your browsing activity on the Website.
First party cookies are created by the website that you are visiting. A third-party cookie is frequently used in behavioral advertising and analytics and is created by a domain other than the website you are visiting. Third-party cookies, tags, pixels, beacons and other similar technologies (collectively, “Tags”) may be placed on the Website to monitor interaction with advertising content and to target and optimize advertising. Each internet browser has functionality so that you can block both first and third-party cookies and clear your browser’s cache. The “help” feature of the menu bar on most browsers will tell you how to stop accepting new cookies, how to receive notification of new cookies, how to disable existing cookies and how to clear your browser’s cache. For more information about cookies and how to disable them, you can consult the information at All About Cookies.
Without cookies you may not be able to take full advantage of the Website content and features. Please note that rejecting cookies does not mean that you will no longer see ads when you visit our Site. In the event you opt-out, you will still see non-personalized advertisements on the Website.
The Website collects the following data using a cookie when serving personalized ads:
- IP Address
- Operating System type
- Operating System version
- Device Type
- Language of the website
- Web browser type
- Email (in hashed form)
Mediavine Partners (companies listed below with whom Mediavine shares data) may also use this data to link to other end user information the partner has independently collected to deliver targeted advertisements. Mediavine Partners may also separately collect data about end users from other sources, such as advertising IDs or pixels, and link that data to data collected from Mediavine publishers in order to provide interest-based advertising across your online experience, including devices, browsers and apps. This data includes usage data, cookie information, device information, information about interactions between users and advertisements and websites, geolocation data, traffic data, and information about a visitor’s referral source to a particular website. Mediavine Partners may also create unique IDs to create audience segments, which are used to provide targeted advertising.
If you would like more information about this practice and to know your choices to opt-in or opt-out of this data collection, please visit National Advertising Initiative opt out page. You may also visit Digital Advertising Alliance website and Network Advertising Initiative website to learn more information about interest-based advertising. You may download the AppChoices app at Digital Advertising Alliance’s AppChoices app to opt out in connection with mobile apps, or use the platform controls on your mobile device to opt out.
For specific information about Mediavine Partners, the data each collects and their data collection and privacy policies, please visit Mediavine Partners.