Privacy Policy

Who we are#

Hotelio is a property-management app for small hotels, guesthouses and villas, available on iOS, Android and the web at app.hotelio.lk. It is operated by Hotelio, Colombo, Sri Lanka ("we", "us"). Questions about this policy go to admin@hotelio.lk.

Two different roles#

Hotelio handles two kinds of personal data, and our responsibilities differ for each. This distinction runs through the whole policy.

• Your account and your team. When you or your staff sign up, we decide what to collect and why. We are the controller of that data.
• Your guests. When you enter a guest's details into Hotelio, you decide what to record and why. You are the controller; we are a processor acting on your instructions. We do not use guest data for our own purposes, we do not contact your guests, and we never sell it.

What we collect#

Account data

• Your email address, and your name if you give it or your sign-in provider supplies it.
• A sign-in identifier from Firebase Authentication. If you sign in with Google or Apple we receive your email address and name from them. If you use Sign in with Apple's "Hide my email", we receive only the relay address. We never receive or store your password.
• Your hotel's details: name, address, country, currency, check-in and check-out times, logo, and the rooms, meals and services you set up.
• Your in-app preferences and message templates.
• Your subscription status and billing history (plan, dates, amounts). We do not collect or see payment card details. On iPhone, Apple handles the payment; on Android, Google Play does; on the web, Paddle does (see below).

Your team

• The email address and role of anyone you invite to your hotel, and the account they join with.
• An activity log of changes made in your hotel — which team member created, changed or cancelled a booking, recorded a payment and so on — so that you can see who did what. It is visible to the hotel, not used for anything else.

Guest and operational data you enter

• Guest name, and email address and phone number where you record them, plus whether the guest has agreed to or opted out of messages.
• Booking details: dates, rooms, number of guests, board basis, meals, services, charges and notes.
• Payments, advance payments and any payment slip images you photograph or upload. Slips and hotel logos are kept in our cloud storage and served only to signed-in members of the hotel that owns them.
• Invoices, expenses and housekeeping task status.

Hotelio does not ask for passport numbers, national identity numbers or other government identifiers, and we would advise against putting them in free-text fields.

Messages to guests

When you message a guest from Hotelio — a welcome note, a price list, a review request — the app opens your own WhatsApp, or your device's share sheet for any other messaging app, with the message already written. You send it from your own account; it does not pass through our servers, and that messaging provider's privacy terms apply to it.

Optional integrations

If you choose to connect an outside service — a booking channel such as Booking.com or Agoda, a channel manager, or the WhatsApp Business Platform for automatic messages — we exchange the booking, availability, rate and message data needed to make that connection work, and keep a record of each exchange so problems can be traced. Nothing is shared with a service you have not connected. Where automatic messages are enabled, we store the message, the number it went to and its delivery status, and we stop messaging a guest who opts out.

Technical data

• App usage events (for example, which screens are opened), tied to an internal account identifier, used to understand which features are used and to improve them.
• Crash reports from the iOS and Android apps, with device model and operating-system version, used to find and fix bugs. These are not tied to your identity. The web version sends no crash reports.
• If you allow notifications, your device registers with Firebase Cloud Messaging and Apple's or Google's push service, which issue it a notification token. The notices shown inside the app (bookings, trial and billing) are deleted after 30 days.
• Standard server logs, which include IP addresses, kept for security and debugging.

In the mobile app#

• Camera and photos are used only when you choose to photograph or attach a payment slip or logo. We do not read your photo library otherwise.
• Notifications are optional and can be turned off in your device settings.
• We do not access your device's location or your contacts (our analytics provider estimates your country and city from your IP address), we do not use the advertising identifier, and we do not track you across other companies' apps or websites.

This website uses no advertising cookies and no third-party tracking pixels.

Why we are allowed to process it#

Who we share it with#

We do not sell personal data and we do not share it for advertising. We use these providers to run the service, each only for the job listed:

Services you connect yourself (see Optional integrations) receive data under their own terms. We may also disclose data where the law requires it, or to establish or defend a legal claim. If Hotelio is ever sold or merged, your data would pass to the new operator under this policy, and we would tell you first.

Where data is stored#

Our database, uploaded files and backups are held in Oracle Cloud's India (Mumbai) region. Our sign-in, analytics, crash-reporting and email providers process data on servers in other countries, including the United States. Where a transfer is subject to Sri Lankan, European or United Kingdom data protection law, we rely on the safeguards that law provides, such as the European Commission's standard contractual clauses.

How long we keep it#

• While your account is open: for as long as you keep it. You control your guest and booking records and can delete them at any time.
• After you delete your account: your hotel and every record in it — bookings, guests, payments, slips, invoices, expenses, housekeeping, team invitations and activity log — are deleted immediately, a subscription paid through Paddle or Google Play is cancelled, and your sign-in account is removed. Copies in our backups are deleted automatically within 35 days. A subscription bought in the iPhone app is not cancelled for you — see Deleting your account.
• Billing records: kept by us, and by Apple, Google or Paddle, for as long as tax law requires, typically six to ten years.
• Server logs: kept for a short period for security and then discarded.

Deleting your account#

You can delete your account and all of its data yourself, in the app under Settings → Delete account. It is permanent and cannot be undone — there is no recovery window, so export anything you need first. If you are a team member rather than the owner, deleting your account removes you from the hotel but leaves the hotel's records with its owner. You can also email admin@hotelio.lk from the address on the account and we will do it for you.

If you subscribed in the iPhone app, cancel it first in your iPhone's Settings → your name → Subscriptions. Only Apple can cancel an App Store subscription; deleting your Hotelio account does not stop Apple's charges.

Your rights#

Depending on where you live — including under Sri Lanka's Personal Data Protection Act, No. 9 of 2022, the EU and UK GDPR, and similar laws — you may have the right to access a copy of your data, correct it, delete it, restrict or object to how we use it, receive it in a portable format, withdraw consent, or complain to your data protection authority. To exercise any of these, email admin@hotelio.lk. We will respond within one month.

If you are a guest of a hotel that uses Hotelio and you want your data seen, corrected or removed, please contact that hotel directly. They control it; we act on their instructions. If you contact us instead, we will pass your request to the hotel.

Security#

Traffic is encrypted in transit, and our production secrets are kept in a managed key vault. Access to hotel data requires a signed-in account, and every request is checked against the hotel that owns the record and the member's role. We do not store passwords — sign-in is handled by Firebase Authentication.

No system is perfectly secure. If we become aware of a breach affecting your data, we will tell you without undue delay. If you believe you have found a vulnerability, please email admin@hotelio.lk before disclosing it publicly.

Children#

Hotelio is a business tool and is not directed at children. Account holders must be at least 18. A hotel may record a child as a guest on a booking; that data is the hotel's, as described above.

Changes#

If we change this policy materially we will update the date at the top and notify account holders by email before the change takes effect.

Contact#

Hotelio, Colombo, Sri Lanka.
admin@hotelio.lk