Leave Some Cookies Out for Santa—and Your Website Visitors
Just like Santa expects his cookies, your website visitors have expectations too. Consisting of a small text file of information generated by a web server and stored in your web browser, web cookies allow websites to remember different kinds of user data—think login status, language settings, behavior tracking, or shopping carts. These cookies can last for either a predetermined amount of time or the duration of a user’s session on a website.
A cookie’s purpose is to inform the website about the user, which can help to personalize experiences, remember preferences, save shopping cart contents, and provide authentication—just to name a few! Like leaving out cookies for Santa, cookies leave a helpful trail for your website to understand your visitors’ wishes.
Why Cookies Matter for All Businesses
Cookies aren’t just a website detail—they’re a key tool for understanding and engaging your audience. From personalizing experiences and tracking behavior to powering essential site functions, cookies help businesses deliver relevant content, improve user interactions, and measure the success of marketing efforts.
These data-driven insights enable companies to optimize product offerings, enhance user experience, and fine-tune marketing strategies for better results.
How Cookies Help in the Tourism Space
In the tourism industry, cookies help international visitors manage multiple languages, currencies, and regional content. They make it possible to show prices in a visitor’s local currency, surface offers that match their location and season, and remember trip preferences for future visits.
Cookie Compliance Around the World
Due to rising privacy concerns, the EU and other regions introduced cookie rules (often referred to as the Cookie Law) that generally took effect around 2011. These rules made it clear that most non-essential cookies—especially those used for tracking and advertising—cannot be placed on a user’s device without informing them and getting their consent.
This law then opened the door for GDPR, CCPA, and other regulations around the world to come years later, which included broader, more comprehensive data privacy regulation that governs how all personal data is processed, with cookie consent being just one part of it.
In response to growing privacy expectations, Google announced plans to phase out third‑party cookies in Chrome. More recently, it has adjusted those plans and no longer intends to remove third‑party cookies completely, instead exploring a mix of privacy features and continued cookie support.
These increasing privacy laws and Google’s important decision have initiated the rise in cookie consent banners that users are presented with on so many websites. These banners are typically laid out in various segments that give the user the option to opt in to non‑essential cookies or to reject them.
How to “Leave Cookies” for Your Visitors
Sweeten the User Experience with Website Cookies
Just like cookies make Santa’s night magical, website cookies make the visitor experience seamless and personalized. Make sure to check your privacy strategy before the holiday season so you can leave some cookies out—digital ones, that is—and watch your visitors’ faces light up!
Ready to make your website experience as delightful as leaving cookies out for Santa?
Contact us or schedule a consultation to review your cookie strategy and ensure your visitors get a seamless, personalized experience—while staying fully compliant.
