Privacy Policy

Coastal Escape is a KwaZulu-Natal based caravan hire business. We operate the website at coastalescape.co.za and are the responsible party for your personal information as defined under the Protection of Personal Information Act, 4 of 2013 (POPIA).

We collect only what is necessary to manage your hire enquiry and booking:

• Full name and email address — to identify you and communicate with you
• Phone number — to reach you about your booking
• Preferred hire dates and caravan unit — to check availability
• Number of guests — to confirm occupancy limits
• Messages and enquiry details — to respond accurately to your request
• Account password (hashed, never stored in plain text) — if you register an account

Your information is used exclusively to:

• Respond to hire enquiries and confirm availability
• Process and manage your booking
• Issue invoices and payment reminders
• Send booking confirmations and updates
• Allow you to log in and view your bookings via your account

We will never use your information for marketing without your explicit consent, and we will never sell or rent your data to anyone.

This website uses essential cookies only. No advertising or third-party tracking cookies are used.

• Session cookie — keeps you logged in during your visit. This is set when you sign in and cleared when you sign out or close your browser.
• CSRF token — a security cookie that protects form submissions from cross-site attacks. This contains no personal data.

These cookies are strictly necessary for the site to function. You can disable cookies in your browser settings, but doing so will prevent you from logging in.

When you visit the shop, we use a built-in recommendation engine (the Upsale Bot) to suggest related products based on what's in your cart. This is a first-party system — no third-party tracking companies are involved.

The Upsale Bot works by analysing anonymised order history to find products that are frequently bought together. When a suggestion is shown, we record:

• Which product IDs were in your cart at the time
• Which products were suggested
• Whether you added a suggested product or dismissed the prompt

This data contains no personal information (no name, email, or device fingerprint) and is used solely to improve the relevance of future suggestions. It is stored in our own database and is never shared externally.

Your data is stored securely in a cloud-hosted database with encryption at rest and in transit. Access is restricted to authorised personnel only. Passwords are hashed using industry-standard bcrypt and are never stored or transmitted in plain text. We retain your information for as long as necessary to manage your booking relationship with us, or as required by law.

We do not sell, trade, or share your personal information with third parties except as strictly necessary to operate our service:

• Netlify — our hosting provider. Your data passes through their infrastructure but is not accessible to them for any purpose.
• Neon (via Netlify Database) — our database provider. Data is stored on their infrastructure in the United States under their data processing agreement.

Under the Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA), you have the right to:

• Access — request a copy of the personal information we hold about you
• Correction — request that inaccurate information be corrected
• Deletion — request that your personal information be deleted from our systems
• Objection — object to us processing your personal information
• Complaint — lodge a complaint with the Information Regulator of South Africa

To exercise any of these rights, email us at info@coastalescape.co.za and we will respond within 10 business days.

If you have any questions about this policy or how we handle your data, contact us at info@coastalescape.co.za. This policy was last updated in May 2026 and may be revised from time to time. Any significant changes will be communicated via email to registered users.