Privacy

Clever Magnolia is a small travel-planning agency run by Keiko Nishimura from 3-55-2 Higashiokoshicho, Nakagawa Ward, Nagoya. We arrange onsen retreats, ryokan stays and seasonal touring for travellers who are mostly over sixty. This policy explains what we learn about you while planning a journey, what we do with it, and what you can ask of us. It is written to meet Japan's Act on the Protection of Personal Information (APPI) and applies to this website, to email and telephone enquiries, and to the paperwork we keep for each trip.

An enquiry through the contact form or by phone gives us your name, an email address or number to reply to, and whatever you tell us about the trip you have in mind. Once a booking is confirmed we need more: the full name of every traveller as printed in their passport (ryokan are required by the Hotel Business Act to record it), date of birth for rail passes and travel insurance, a home address for the invoice, and an emergency contact. Many of our guests also tell us about walking distance, stairs, dietary restrictions or medication timing so that we can choose the right room and meal plan. We only write down what is needed to make the arrangement work.

Information about mobility, chronic conditions or diet counts as sensitive personal information under APPI, so we ask for it directly and use it for one purpose only: matching you with ryokan, baths and transport that suit you. It is never passed to a partner in more detail than the partner needs. A ryokan will hear that a guest prefers a ground-floor room and a chair in the bath; it will not receive a diagnosis. You can withdraw these notes at any time, in which case we plan without them.

We use what you give us to draft and revise an itinerary, to reserve rooms, seats and guides in your name, to issue invoices and receipts, to send the pre-departure pack, and to reach you during the journey if a plan changes. We also keep the file after you return so that a second trip can build on the first. We do not use your details for advertising, and we do not build profiles or scores from them.

The site sets no tracking or analytics cookies. The only value stored in your browser records that you closed the small cookie notice, so that it does not reappear on every page. It contains nothing about you and disappears when you clear your browser data. The contact form is a plain email form and stores nothing on our server.

To make a journey happen we share the minimum necessary with the people who deliver it: the ryokan and hotels you will stay in, rail and coach operators, licensed guides, and, if you ask us to arrange it, a domestic travel-insurance provider. Each receives only the fields it needs for its own booking. If you are travelling from outside Japan, your details may be handled by a partner in your home country when a payment or insurance document has to be issued there; we tell you when that is the case.

Enquiries that do not turn into a booking are deleted after twelve months. Booking files, invoices and receipts are kept for seven years because tax rules and travel-agency regulations require it. Health and mobility notes are deleted from the file two years after the last journey unless you ask us to keep them for a future trip.

Under APPI you may ask to see the personal information we hold about you, to correct it, to stop us using it, or to delete it. Write to hello@clevermagnolia.com or call +81 52-384-5160 during office hours and we will answer within two weeks. We will confirm who you are before releasing anything. If a deletion request conflicts with a record we must keep by law, we will explain which parts remain and for how long.

Booking files live in a password-protected system with two-factor sign-in that only Keiko and one assistant can open. Paper copies of passport details, which some ryokan still require, are shredded once the stay is over. Email with partners is limited to the traveller's name and dates wherever possible.

If our practices change, for example because we add an online payment option, we will update this page and note the date below. Guests with an active booking are told by email.

Clever Magnolia, 3-55-2 Higashiokoshicho, Nakagawa Ward, Nagoya, Aichi 454-0935. Telephone +81 52-384-5160. Email hello@clevermagnolia.com. Keiko Nishimura is the person responsible for personal information.