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Content Guidelines

Content Guidelines: Overview

DestinationSouthAfrica.co.za’s priority is to foster safe and welcoming travel experiences for all.

We expect our employees, customers and partners to treat each other with respect. That’s why we developed this set of guidelines that applies to the reviews, images and listings uploaded by our guests and partners. We want to make sure that the content you engage with on our site is safe and helpful.
When you post a review, image or listing on DestinationSouthAfrica.co.za, it needs to comply with these guidelines. They form part of our broader set of policies, including our terms and conditions and privacy notices. If your content doesn’t comply, we’ll remove it or get in touch with you to try and edit the comment to meet our guidelines.

Dangerous and disrespectful content

Hate, discrimination and harassment

Hate speech and discriminatory language are not permitted on DestinationSouthAfrica.co.za. We want all our guests and partners to feel safe and respected, so we don’t allow:

  • Content promoting violence, discriminatory language or hatred against a person or group based on who they are – this includes any form of discrimination based on the following characteristics: age, disability, ethnicity, gender identity and expression, nationality, race, immigration status, religion, sex, sexual orientation, veteran status, caste, political opinion and serious diseases.
  • Content that harasses, bullies or threatens others (or incites others to participate in these activities) – DestinationSouthAfrica.co.za should be a safe place for all our users and so we will take a firm stance with respect to any content that could be deemed intimidating, threatening, rude or disparaging.

Violent, offensive and restricted content

DestinationSouthAfrica.co.za is not a place for violent or offensive content, or content that’s deemed legally restricted based on local laws. We don’t allow:

  • Content that promotes, facilitates or encourages any kind of violence against others – this includes threats of violence, recommending violence or any declaration to commit violence.
  • Content that’s obscene, offensive or isn’t appropriate for all audiences.
  • Content that offers, sells, advertises or facilitates the sale of regulated or restricted goods and services.
  • Terrorism related content – includes content that promotes, supports or incites acts of terrorism, or that supports or represents any terrorist organisation, its leaders or associated violent activities. In addition, we don’t allow content that we deem, in our sole discretion and as aligned with the Consolidated United Nations Security Council Sanctions List, to promote, support or incite acts of violent extremism, or that supports or represents any organisation engaged in violent extremism.

Animal welfare

Animal cruelty isn’t tolerated by DestinationSouthAfrica.co.za. Guests, partners and employees are expected to respect domestic animals and wildlife and to foster living conditions for animals that align with South Africa’s Animal Welfare Guidelines.

We don’t allow:

  • Content that displays or promotes direct contact with wild animals
  • Content that displays or promotes animals in captivity with bad welfare conditions
  • Content relating to activities, entertainment or sports events that are known to cause distress and harm to animals

Content of a sexual nature

We don’t allow content that contains sexually explicit material, nudity or pornographic acts. This includes any content including text, digital and animated images that supports, promotes or depicts child sexual exploitation or sexualised content of suspected minors (also known as Child Sexual Abuse Material or CSAM).

Image and editorial guidelines

Photos and images are a valuable resource on DestinationSouthAfrica.co.za. To be helpful to our community, they need to be useful, informative and related to the actual travel experience.

We don’t allow:

  • Images that don’t relate to the actual travel experience
  • Images that contravene any of the policies, standards or guidelines included here

Also, written content needs to be legible and related to the travel experience. We don’t allow content that’s not understandable, coherent or doesn’t make grammatical sense.

Intellectual property, privacy and confidential data

Intellectual property

DestinationSouthAfrica.co.za respects intellectual property rights and expects its guests and partners to do the same. Our policy is to:

  • Review cases of notified intellectual property infringement and act to remove instances of infringing or suspected infringing content
  • Disable accounts or otherwise restrict access to users who repeatedly infringe the intellectual property rights of others

If you’d like to report copyright infringement, you can do so using our copyright infringement reporting form.

Personal and other confidential data

DestinationSouthAfrica.co.za takes its privacy and data protection obligations seriously, in line with our applicable Privacy Statement.

We don’t allow content that may put the privacy of our guests and other data subjects at increased risk. For example, guests or partners erroneously share personal data about other persons, including but not limited to sensitive or special-category personal data. This also includes credit card numbers, national identification numbers, driver’s and other licence numbers, addresses or any other information that isn’t publicly accessible.

Spam, misleading content and deceptive practices

DestinationSouthAfrica.co.za aims to protect our guests and partners from reviews that aren’t based on the experience of a real customer, or content that isn’t related to the topic or experience of travelling.

We don’t allow:

  • Content that isn’t relevant to DestinationSouthAfrica.co.za, the stay or actual travel experience
  • Content that’s likely to mislead, deceive or confuse DestinationSouthAfrica.co.za users
  • Any of our guests or partners to misrepresent themselves or impersonate another person

Commercial content

At DestinationSouthAfrica.co.za, we believe that contributions are most helpful when they are honest, unbiased and contain objective information. In particular, reviews left on DestinationSouthAfrica.co.za should reflect genuine guest experiences.

We don’t allow:

  • Content created solely for the purpose of self-promotion, advertising or other commercial content
  • Commercial content that promotes or advertises specific services
  • Content that includes contact details or information designed to promote or advertise specific services
  • A partner to review their listing, business or accommodation

Non-stayed reservations

We value the opinions of our contributors. That’s why only a customer who has booked through DestinationSouthAfrica.co.za can write a review. If the guest arrives at the accommodation, they’ll be able to leave a review, even if they don’t complete their stay. However, if a reservation is cancelled before the check-in day, the guest won’t receive a review questionnaire.

If a review is written under these circumstances, we do allow:

  • Reviews that contain critical information that would be relevant for a future guest
  • Reviews that contain feedback about communication between the accommodation and the guest
  • Reviews that are relevant to the travel experience