For legal and regulatory reasons, it is important for many properties to use a cookie consent banner on their website that complies with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). You can add this using the website builder integrated with the Cookiebot service.
The GDPR is a set of data protection laws that apply to European Union (EU) citizens and residents. If you have guests visiting your page and booking from this region, you will be required to comply with the GDPR. It is likely that your website can be accessed by members of these countries , so we strongly advise you to follow this guide.
Importance of the cookie consent banner
Let’s review what cookies and GDPR are, and how the regulation affects your website even if your property is not located in Europe.
About cookies
Cookies are small text files that websites place in your web browser as you browse the Internet. These text files store data that can be used for several purposes by websites, such as to track your activity and target you with personalised advertising. To address privacy and security concerns, the GDPR restricts the storing of "personal identifiable information" in cookies without a person’s consent.
About GDPR
The European Union approved the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in 2018, to control how companies and other organizations handle personal data. The law has regulations that protect the data of European citizens living anywhere in the world and European residents. Its jurisdiction is global.
A global jurisdiction means that even if your property is not located in the European Union, the regulation will still apply to you when a European person visits your website. If you fail to comply, you could be fined. See the GDPR website for further information.
Importantly, the GDPR requires that websites get consent from a user before activating cookies and tracking on their website. The GDPR requires a banner to be shown to the user, asking for their consent before cookies are loaded (except certain necessary cookies). The banner must give the user the option to reject all cookies.
How the cookie consent banner works
To simplify compliance with the GDPR in your website builder, we have partnered with Cookiebot. This service allows you to add a GDPR-compliant banner to your site that asks for cookie consent.
Cookiebot controls which cookies are enabled for your visitors by integrating with Google Tag Manager. Each functionality that uses cookies is managed as a "tag", and these tags are only enabled when the user has given consent via the Cookiebot banner.
On Cookiebot’s knowledge base, you can learn more about implementing Cookiebot on your website.
Integrate your website builder with Cookiebot
To integrate your website builder with Cookiebot:
Set up your Cookiebot account.
Set up your Google Tag Manager account.
Set up the cookie consent banner in your Google Tag Manager.
Add additional consent checks in your Google Tag Manager.
Set up Google Tag Manager as a widget in your website builder.
Add a Cookie Declaration in your website builder.
Publish changes to your Google Tag Manager.
Publish changes to your website builder.