Net Effects creates toolkit for small travel firms to avoid GDPR panic

Tool designed for companies with limited time and resources Continue reading →

Travel Marketing technology specialist Net Effect has created an online toolkit to guide small independent firms through becoming GDPR compliant.

The resource, which can be found here, has been designed for companies with limited time and resources to dedicate to the new EU data regulations.

These come in on May 25 after a two-year transition period and put much greater onus on firms to protect customer data and ensure they have consent to use it or face heavy fines.

Net Effect says as a travel marketing firm the new rules have had a significant impact on its business and it has been busy getting up to speed at what it needs to do as well as supporting clients in.

Steve Rushton of Net Effect said: “It’s clear that although our clients are mainly small, independent specialists with less than 250 employees, as travel businesses handling personal data as part of every transaction GDPR does not just affect their marketing as many have thought.

“The big change brought about by GDPR is that it is no longer enough to be satisfied yourself as a business owner that your processes safeguard your customers’ data.

“Being GDPR compliant means you have to document exactly how you do this for all of your regular business processes in accordance with the stipulated requirements.

“For travel businesses this will include quotes and bookings as well as finance and human resources functions.”

Net Effect say the travel agent GDPR toolkit will help small businesses to make the following essential changes in their businesses:

• Speed up the process of completing assessments and documentation through industry specific examples and templates;

• Save time on research by providing information and notes relevant to their business with links to extra reading on each topic

• Provide templated documents to use in your business such as GDPR compliant Privacy Policies;

• Provide an audit file for reference and staff training.

Rushton added:  “We totally understand the frustration of business owners finding the time to complete what feels like yet more unnecessary paperwork, the benefit of which might not be entirely clear.

“It’s not surprising that many small businesses have not started yet and some still aren’t even sure what it is.

“With the May 25 fast approaching, we felt that some simpler and more specific GDPR help was required in order to prevent any last minute GDPR panics.

“So we’ve designed a handy, easy to follow, time saving Travel Business GDPR Toolkit to fast track the whole process and help get as many businesses as possible ready on time and in as pain-free a method as possible.”