Privacy Policy

Last updated 2 October 2026

Direct Hotels is a free directory. There are no accounts, no payments, and no booking flow — when you book, you do it on the hotel's own website, not here. That keeps what we hold about you small, and this page describes all of it.

What we collect

Analytics

We use Google Analytics 4 to count page views and understand which cities people look for. It sets cookies and records your approximate location, device and referring site. We do not use it to build advertising profiles, and we run no ad networks.

The AI trip planner

If you use the planner, we store what you type: your messages, the assistant's replies, which hotels were shown, a randomly generated session id, and the site that referred you. We keep these to see where the planner fails — which is how we found that it was recommending hotels in cities we do not cover.

Your messages are also sent to Anthropic, which runs the model that generates the replies. The session id is not linked to any identity, and we ask you not to type anything into the planner you would not want stored. Do not put passwords, payment details or identity documents into it.

Claims and requests to add a hotel

If you claim a listing, we store the hotel, your email address and your message, so we can verify the claim and get back to you. If you ask us to add a hotel or a city, we store what you tell us — the hotel, city, its website, and your email if you give one — so we know where to collect next and can tell you when it is live.

Either way, an email address you give us is used to reply to you about that request and nothing else. We do not add it to a mailing list.

Server logs

Our host keeps standard request logs (IP address, user agent, URL) for operating and securing the site.

What we do not collect

No accounts, passwords or profiles — there is nothing to sign up for
No payment details — we never handle a transaction
No booking data — we do not see what you book or whether you booked
No advertising or cross-site tracking cookies
We do not sell or rent anything we hold, to anyone, ever

Who processes it

Vercel — hosting and request logs
Supabase — the database holding hotels, planner conversations and claim requests
Anthropic — generates the planner's replies from your messages
Google Analytics — page view analytics
Mapbox — renders the maps; it receives requests when a map loads

Leaving the site

Our outbound links carry a utm_source=direct-hotels.com tag so hotels can see we sent you. It identifies this site, not you. Once you are on a hotel's website you are covered by their privacy policy, not ours.

AI assistants

The directory is available to AI assistants through a public, read-only interface. Those requests return hotel data only. We do not receive the conversation an assistant is having with you, and we have no way to identify you through it.

We do log the calls themselves: which tool was used, the search terms passed to it (a city or hotel name), whether we had any coverage, how long it took, and how the assistant identifies itself. We keep this to see which destinations people ask for that we don't yet cover. It is not linked to you, and we do not log anything the assistant was not asked to look up.

Retention and your choices

Planner conversations and claim requests are kept while they are useful for improving the directory. Analytics follows Google's standard retention. You can block cookies in your browser; the directory works without them.

To ask what we hold about you, or to have it deleted, email hello@direct-hotels.com. Because there are no accounts, it helps to include the approximate date and city you searched so we can find the record.

Children

The directory is not directed at children under 13 and we do not knowingly collect their data.

Changes

If this policy changes materially we will update the date above. Direct Hotels is run by Nicolas Sitter. Questions: hello@direct-hotels.com.