Virtuoso is a network of the luxury travel agencies that connects travelers to the best travel agents. With more than 17,500 advisors and nearly 1,700 preferred partners, including top hotels, cruise lines, tour operators, and more.
Virtuoso’s business spans countries and continents, much like the travelers they service, which made their approach to privacy and compliance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) a unique opportunity to demonstrate compliance to their network of agents and partners and educate them on data protection best practices.
Partnering with OneTrust to address multiple data protection challenges
There are several areas within the Virtuoso business that processes personal information. Network members share data with Virtuoso, such as bookings and client information to enjoy the benefits provided by various Virtuoso programs/services. Virtuoso provides their own booking tools through which customers or travel agents submit their own bookings. Agencies and suppliers also share data back and forth.
“We must maintain a high trust relationship with our members,” said Josh Mason, VP of Engineering at Virtuoso. “Knowing that we’re the stewards for someone else’s data, we have to manage, protect and ensure data is handled in the right way.”
Virtuoso realized the importance of leveraging a comprehensive privacy management tool like OneTrust for assessment automation, data mapping, cookie consent and ongoing GDPR-related updates and maintenance.
“OneTrust makes life easier,” said Rekha Kothamachu, the Director of Data integration and reporting at Virtuoso. “If there’s a change to an application or process, through OneTrust everyone involved is aware of the change and can determine if one change causes other data impacts.”
Virtuoso also provides its network of travel agents the option to white label their website for their own business. With thousands of agent websites under the Virtuoso domain, cookie compliance and website scanning is a critical area for their privacy efforts. The Virtuoso privacy team implemented the OneTrust cookie banner and preference center on the main Virtuoso site and hundreds of agent’s sites.