Our Privacy Statement

A Step Ahead considers your privacy to be of utmost importance at all times. During the process of  planning and booking journeys, we will need some personal information from you. This page contains our Privacy Statement and governs how we use that information.

Any data you give us will be kept on our records in compliance with the Organic Law on Protection of Personal Data (Ley Orgánica 15/1999 de 13 de Diciembre, de Protección de Datos de Carácter Personal) of Spain, and the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) of the EU 2016/679.

Consent

When we request private information from you, and consent cannot be implied or has not already be given, we will always request your consent. Once we have your consent we will only use the information in accordance with this privacy statement.

Access and control of your data held by us

You have the right to view and correct the information that we have concerning you in our records. You also have the right to request that we delete the information, if we are not required to hold this information by law.

At the bottom of every email from our mailing list you will find links to your record so that you may view and edit it, or unsubscribe yourself at any time.

If you have given us information through an on-line form, email or a paper form, or through a video conference managed by us, you may contact us by phone or email   , or use any of the other contacts listed on our websites or documents, and request to see, edit or have your record deleted.

Storage and control of the data

Aside from the minimum requirements by Spanish law, A Step Ahead S.L. guarantees that any personal data you provide to us will be held securely, in such a way as to minimize any risk of loss, or of alteration by third parties.

Our use of the information & third parties

The information we request from you and how we use it will vary, depending on the service required. At the time that we request information from you we will inform you why we require it.

We share some information with third parties. When that is the case, we will indicate who they are and why we need to share it with them. Some of these third parties are based outside the European Union, and would only be bound by the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) of the EU 2016/679 if they are dealing with citizens of the EU.

Information we collect from you & what we do with it

We require private information in order to provide you with a service. For example we would require your name and email address in order to send you information and updates if you subscribed to our mailing list. We would need to know activities that you enjoy doing, or to have an idea of your physical abilities, if we were designing a safari for you. We would require more information, some of which we would need to share with third parties, if you booked a journey with us. For instance, if we have booked accommodation for you at a camp in a remote area (where there is no alternative accommodations or meal providers), they would need to know if you have any allergies to food or other dietary preferences.

We do not have payment facilities via our websites (www.astepahead.es and those sites associated with it – www.wildernessafrica.com and www.unpasoadelante.es (our Spanish pages), or our Facebook page).

Please find more details below on the information that we request.

Examples of data requests by us and its uses

Mailing list

If you have subscribed to our mailing list, the information supplied is kept in confidence. We do not share any of our contacts with third parties for marketing purposes. We request your name and email address, home town and country (required so that we can tailor our correspondence to your time zone and location). We use this information to periodically send you emails about safaris, climbs or other journeys that we have done, or send you information about properties or areas of interest, or about marketing trips that our guides are doing. If you have given us your telephone number, we may contact you by telephone. Our mailing list uses the services of Mailchimp and Google Analytics to store and process subscribers’ use of our mailing list.

Initial Contact

If you complete our on-line contact form (booking request), we require more information, so that we may tailor our services to your needs. We may also follow up your request by planning and setting up a phone conversation (e.g. through Skype) or a video conference (e.g. Zoom) to enable us to customize travel for you. These are usually recorded, and we may use these recordings in a similar way to hand-written notes, to help us follow up on items discussed in the call. Normally at this stage we would need to know how many people would be in your travel party, and if any are young or elderly (the age can have an effect on which activities are permitted and whether cost reductions are applicable). This information is held in confidence, unless you have given us permission to share information you supply us.

Booking a journey

If you then decide to contract our services and book a journey with us, we will require more information. This information is usually supplied by email, on-line forms or by paper forms sent in the mail. Sometimes we may follow up with a phone conversation (e.g. through Skype) or a video conference (e.g. Zoom) to enable us to customize the journey for you. These are usually recorded. We may use these recordings in a similar way to hand-written notes, to help us follow up on items discussed in the call.

This information includes the following: Your name and contact information (such as email and phone numbers), nationality, date of birth, relevant information related to health (including any disability, medications you carry and may use, or allergies that you have), weight (passenger weight is required by light aircraft charter and schedule providers for flight safety), your preferences (such as dietary restrictions, which may disclose religious beliefs), insurance information, name and contacts of next of kin, among other information relevant to your trip.

Some information about the other members of your group (your travel companions) may be supplied by the group representative if authorized, or other responsible person (parents or guardian) for minors.

It may be necessary to share some of this information with third parties, such as hotels, local ground operators or providers of transport and other services. Some of these third parties reside outside the European Union, and may not be bound by the same laws.

In any case we only pass on information that is required in order to fulfil the booking.

Feedback form

Feedback information is requested after a trip with us, and provided though our on-line feedback form. We collect this information to improve our services.

Further information

If you have a question or request about our Privacy Statement or use of data we hold you may contact us by phone or email   .