Privacy Policy
Last updated 21 September 2026.
This policy describes what Tokyo Tourism Guide (tokyotourism.org) collects, why, and what you can do about it. It describes the site as it actually operates today. Where something is planned but not yet running, it says so.
The short version
You can read every guide on this site without giving it anything. There is no account to create, no newsletter, no comment section and no login. The only personal information the site ever receives directly is what you type into the contact form. Everything else is analytics and affiliate attribution, and you can refuse both.
Who is responsible
Tokyo Tourism Guide is the data controller for this website. The site is published and operated from the United States, which means that where it holds anything about you, that information is stored and processed in the United States. Reach us through the contact page for any question about this policy or to exercise the rights set out below.
Information you give us
The contact form. Submitting it sends us your name, your email address, the subject category you picked, the guide you referenced if you named one, and your message. This is processed to answer you and, where you have reported an error, to correct the site. The legal basis is our legitimate interest in responding to correspondence and in keeping our published information accurate. The form is delivered by WPForms and sent onward by email through WP Mail SMTP; the message is retained in the site database and in the destination mailbox for as long as it is useful for that correspondence, and is deleted on request.
We do not sell this information, we do not add contact-form addresses to any mailing list, and we do not use them for anything other than replying to you.
Information collected automatically
Google Analytics 4. This site runs Google Analytics via the Site Kit plugin. It records pages viewed, approximate location derived from a truncated IP address, device and browser type, the referring site, and how you move between pages. It is used in aggregate — to see which guides are read and which are ignored — and is not used to identify individual visitors. Google acts as our processor for this. You can prevent it entirely by refusing analytics in the cookie settings, with Google’s opt-out browser add-on, or by blocking analytics cookies in your browser.
Google Search Console. Connected for search performance reporting. It reports aggregated search queries and click data and does not give us anything that identifies you.
Server logs. Our host records standard web-server access logs, including IP address, timestamp and requested URL. These are kept for security and troubleshooting on the host’s own retention schedule.
Cookies and similar technologies
This site uses a consent manager. Anything in the analytics or marketing categories is held back until you allow it, and you can change your mind at any time through the cookie settings link in the footer. The technologies involved are:
- Analytics cookies set by Google Analytics, which distinguish returning visitors from new ones and measure session length. These are in the analytics category and do not run until you allow them.
- Functional cookies set by WordPress and the WP Super Cache plugin, which handle page caching and, if you submit the contact form, keep that submission working correctly. These are necessary for the site to work and are not subject to consent.
- A consent record set by the Aegis Consent plugin, storing your answer to the cookie notice so it is not put to you again on every page.
- Affiliate attribution by our booking partner, which is described in the next section. It is in the marketing category. It is not a cookie, which is exactly why it is spelled out separately below.
The cookie policy lists what is actually set, generated from the services running here so that it stays accurate as those change. You can block or delete any of it through your browser settings as well. Nothing on this site is gated, so refusing costs you no content.
What runs before you choose, and how to change it
What runs before you choose depends on where you are reading from, because the law does. In the European Economic Area and the United Kingdom, and in Brazil, Chile, China, Israel, Nigeria, South Korea, Thailand, Türkiye and Vietnam, nothing beyond the strictly necessary runs until you answer the dialog on your first visit — not analytics, not Stay22 — and Reject all sits on that first screen next to Accept all, not behind a second click.
In the United States you are shown a bar rather than a dialog, and it is not only a notice. Analytics starts on arrival there, but advertising and booking-partner scripts stay switched off until you answer it. In Switzerland you get the dialog too, but analytics starts on arrival there and only advertising and booking-partner scripts wait for your answer. In Canada, and in the countries where notice is enough — among them Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Singapore, India and Mexico — everything described on this page starts when you arrive; the notice tells you so, and the same control switches it off. Everywhere else, and whenever we cannot tell where you are, the strictest setting applies: nothing beyond the necessary runs until you answer.
Your answer is kept on your own device, in a first-party cookie called cookie_consent_8da5a8 that only this site can read, so you are not asked again on every page. It lasts about a year. The Cookie settings link in the footer of every page reopens the choice, and withdrawing is the same two clicks as agreeing: the scripts stop and what they stored on your device is cleared, including visitor_id_id22, cache_id22 and the thumbmark_* keys.
Refusing costs you nothing. Every guide here is readable in full either way, nothing is paywalled, and no part of Tokyo Tourism Guide is held back from readers who say no.
If you are reading this in the United States
Several US states give you the right to opt out of the “sale” or “sharing” of personal information, and those words are broader than they sound: letting an advertising or affiliate partner receive information about your visit can count as sharing even though no money changes hands for your data and we have never sold anything of the kind. Rather than argue the definition, Tokyo Tourism Guide treats it as covered.
So the bar shown to US readers carries a Do not sell or share button, and for US readers the Cookie settings link at the foot of every page reads Do not sell or share my personal information. Using it stops the advertising category, which is what Stay22 and any ad partner sit in, and clears what they have already stored on your device.
This site also honours Global Privacy Control. If your browser or an extension sends a GPC signal, it is treated as a valid opt-out on arrival — you do not have to find the control and click it as well, and we do not ask again on later visits. Do Not Track is a different and long-abandoned signal, and to be straight about it: this site does not act on DNT, because nothing agreed what it ought to mean.
The record kept of your choice
Proving that a choice was offered and honoured means keeping a record of it. Each answer is logged with the date and time, the two-letter country the choice was made from, which of the rule sets above applied, a reference to the exact wording you were shown, and the choice itself, against a random identifier generated for your browser.
That record contains no name, no email address and no IP address. It holds a salted hash of your browser’s user-agent string, and the salt changes every day, so two visits on different days cannot be linked back together through it. Records are deleted after 26 months. If you want to see or delete the entries tied to your browser, ask through the contact form.
Affiliate links and booking partners
Some of the links on this site are affiliate links. Where a guide points at somewhere to stay or something to book, that link is usually one of them. These are handled by Stay22, a booking-link service that adds a referral tag when you click through to a hotel or booking site. If you go on to book, the booking site pays us a small commission. The price you pay is the same either way, and nothing on this site is behind a paywall or conditional on using those links.
One detail is worth spelling out, because a cookie notice on its own would miss it entirely. Stay22 sets no cookie. It runs a script that rewrites booking links and identifies your device using characteristics of your browser and device, and it stores an identifier in your browser’s local storage. On this site that script sits in the marketing category and does not run at all until you allow it. You can refuse it, or withdraw permission later, in the cookie settings, and refusing does not limit what you can read here.
What the click itself means for your data: the partner receives the fact that the click came from this site, along with the standard technical details any website receives, so that a booking made afterwards can be attributed and the commission paid. Tokyo Tourism Guide never sees your booking, your travel dates, your name or your payment details — what comes back to us is a count of clicks and, occasionally, the fact that a booking happened.
Once you follow one of those links you are on the booking partner’s own site, under their privacy policy, and this one stops applying. The affiliate disclosure sets out which links are commercial and how the tracking is added.
Images and embedded content
Photographs in our guides are served from this site’s own server, not from a third-party image host, so loading a page does not hand your IP address to a stock photography service. Most of them come from Wikimedia Commons and are used under the licences their photographers chose.
Guides do link out to official sources — museum and operator websites, railway companies, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government, Wikimedia Commons for image provenance. Those sites have their own privacy policies, and this one does not cover them.
Comments
Comments are closed across this site and no comment data is collected. There is no comment form to fill in, and no user accounts exist beyond the editorial one.
Children
This site is intended for adults planning travel. We do not knowingly collect information from children under 16. If you believe a child has sent us information through the contact form, tell us and it will be deleted.
Your rights
If you are in the UK or the European Economic Area, you have the right to ask for a copy of the personal data we hold about you, to have it corrected, to have it erased, to restrict or object to how it is used, and to receive it in a portable form. Because the site is operated from the United States, exercising those rights means writing to us rather than to an establishment in your own country; we apply them regardless. In practice, for almost every visitor the only such data is a contact-form message, and we will delete it on request.
If you are in a US state with its own consumer privacy law, you have comparable rights of access and deletion. We do not sell personal information and we do not share it for cross-context behavioural advertising.
Ask through the contact page either way; we will respond within one month. If you are in the UK or the EEA you also have the right to complain to your national data protection authority.
Security and changes
The site is served over HTTPS and kept on current WordPress and plugin versions. No transmission over the internet is ever completely secure, and we cannot guarantee absolute security. This policy may be revised; the date at the top shows when it last was.