A retention period sets after how many months a guest's master data is to be deleted, separately for three groups of guests. The hotel's deletion tasks collect the guests whose period has expired. The menu path is Settings › Data Protection and Privacy › Data retention.
Example: Create a retention period and select it in the privacy policy
Open the list. Settings › Data Protection and Privacy › Data retention shows the “Data retention” list.
Start a new retention period. “Add” in the side navigation under “Data retention” opens the page “New data retention definition”.
Set the periods per group. In the “Guest master data (name, email address, phone number, postal address, etc.)” box, the hotel ticks “Delete after” for each of “Guests without correspondence”, “Guests with correspondence but without reservation” and “Guests with reservation” and enters the years and months, such as 2 years, 3 years and 10 years.
Check the exception. In the “Common Options for Deleting Guest Data” box, “Exclude persons with e-mail marketing consent from all deletions” is already ticked. Guests with consent to e-mail marketing are then not deleted.
Enter the interval. In the “Data Collection for Delete Tasks” box, the hotel enters 30 under “Interval (days) for automatic data collection”. A new deletion task is then created automatically as soon as the most recent deletion task is older than 30 days.
Create the retention period. “Create” saves the new data retention definition and opens the page “Modify data retention definition”.
Select it in the privacy policy. A retention period is selected from within a privacy policy: on the page “Modify privacy policy” of the active policy under Settings › Data Protection and Privacy › Privacy policies, the hotel selects the new retention period in the “Data retention” box; it appears there as “created” with its creation date.
Result. Under “Is used in the following privacy policies”, the retention period shows this privacy policy, and the “Data retention” list shows a tick next to it.
The pages in detail
Data retention
The list shows all of the hotel's retention periods with their “Creation date”. A column without a heading shows a tick for a retention period that at least one active privacy policy uses. The date in the “Creation date” column is a link that opens the page “Modify data retention definition” of this retention period. “Add” in the side navigation opens the page “New data retention definition”.
New data retention definition
The page has four boxes:
“Guest master data (name, email address, phone number, postal address, etc.)”: the three groups “Guests without correspondence”, “Guests with correspondence but without reservation” and “Guests with reservation”. A guest with a reservation belongs to “Guests with reservation”. A guest with an offer or with only a conversation belongs to “Guests with correspondence but without reservation”. Every other guest belongs to “Guests without correspondence”. Each group has the “Delete after” checkbox and an entry in years and months. The allowed range is 1 to 1199 months, that is, up to 99 years and 11 months. Without a tick at “Delete after”, this group is never deleted.
“Common Options for Deleting Guest Data”: the checkbox “Exclude persons with e-mail marketing consent from all deletions”. If it is ticked, guests with consent to e-mail marketing are not deleted. For a new retention period, it is ticked.
“Data Collection for Delete Tasks”: the field “Interval (days) for automatic data collection”. It states after how many days a new deletion task is created automatically. A new retention period starts with 0, and 0 means “Deactivated”.
“Is used in the following privacy policies”: the privacy policies that use this retention period.
“Create” saves the new data retention definition and opens the page “Modify data retention definition”. “Cancel” discards the entries, creates no retention period and leads back to the “Data retention” list.
Modify data retention definition
The page shows the same boxes as “New data retention definition”. “Save” appears only when there are unsaved changes, saves the changes and leaves the page open.
How retention period and privacy policy are connected. A privacy policy uses at most one retention period; a retention period can be used in several privacy policies. For each guest, the retention period of the privacy policy the guest last agreed to applies. If the guest has agreed to none, the retention period of the active privacy policy applies. If the “Data retention and cancellation” section is ticked in the privacy policy, the guest sees the entered periods in years and months.
Prerequisites
‘Data retention’ does not need a licence module of its own.
Access to ‘Data retention’ is enabled for specific users through their role. The following needs its own access in the role: saving a retention period. Roles are managed by ReGuest support.
Frequently asked questions
Why is the “Data retention” menu item missing? The user's role does not enable it. Roles are managed by ReGuest support.
Why can a retention period be viewed but not saved? Saving needs its own access in the role. Roles are managed by ReGuest support.
Why does the list show no tick for a retention period? No active privacy policy uses it. On the page “Modify privacy policy” of the active policy, it is selected in the “Data retention” box.
Why are no deletion tasks created on their own? The field “Interval (days) for automatic data collection” is set to 0, that is, “Deactivated”; a number greater than 0 switches it on. Or the retention period does not belong to the active privacy policy; then it is selected there in the “Data retention” box. Or no active user has access to the deletion tasks in their role; roles are managed by ReGuest support.
Are guests of a group without a tick at “Delete after” deleted? No, this group is never deleted.
Can a retention period be deleted? No, there is no button for that.
As of: 2026-10-28.