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