Cultural Immersion Travel Peru provides authentic, ones-in- a-lifetime travel experiences, by taking travelers to local communities and cultural heritage, without negatively effecting the environment or the cultural identity of the places visited. Cultural Immersion Travel Peru obligates itself to closely cooperate with its suppliers (transportation, accommodation, guides, etc.) and clients and provides them with guidelines of how to operate and act responsibly. Although being focused on preserving the cultural heritage of each destination, Cultural Immersion Travel Peru is highly dedicated to ensure the introduction of sustainability into the management system in its entirety, including environmental, social and economic issues.
Cultural Immersion Travel Peru recognizes the importance of involving its staff into the process of introducing the topic of sustainability and sustainable development into the company. Therefore, the topic is subsequently on the agenda of the weekly meetings with the staff of our office in Cusco and of the monthly meetings with our tour guides and drivers, who work with Cultural Immersion Travel Peru on a freelancer basis.
Cultural Immersion Travel Peru is regularly monitoring and evaluating its actions with regards to sustainability. This includes the detailed assessment of the current action plan, to monitor which actions have been taken (and which ones have to be further worked on) and to evaluate if the action taken has been a success or with difficulties have been occurred respectively.
According to the article 87 and 98 of the ILO convention, all employees of Cultural Immersion Travel Peru are free to join a workers union. At Cultural Immersion Travel Peru, we additionally strive for equal opportunities for all present and potential employees and therefore do not discriminate against anyone for their membership of or affiliation to any trade unions or political parties.
At Cultural Immersion Travel Peru, all employees are free to choose where and when they begin and end their work with us. The employment can be ended by the employee with a notice period of minimum one calendar month.
The legal minimum wage in Peru is 850 PEN (equivalent to around 260 USD) per month. At Cultural Immersion, we think that this wage is not enough for a person to make a living, that is why we decided to pay wages above this legal minimum.
At Cultural Immersion Travel Peru, we contribute to a medical insurance for all our employees.
After a working period of six months in the company, all employees of Cultural Immersion Travel Peru have a right of 30 days of paid vacations per year. Additionally, all employees at Cultural Immersion Travel Peru are entitled to paid sick leave, if certified by a doctor.
At Cultural Immersion Travel Peru, we clearly do not accept any form of discrimination related to gender, age, race, religion, political opinion or sexual orientation. At Cultural Immersion Travel Peru, we try to recruit local people in both office and field positions where possible. Members of staff are being trained and receive the same remuneration as foreigners doing the same job. We are also highly sensible to the topic of gender discrimination in the recruitment process and promote diversity in the selection of our staff.
According to the ILO norm no. 138 and our own standards, we do not employ any child under the age of 18 in our company. We also make sure that all of our suppliers comply with these standards.
At the Cultural Immersion office, we only use recycled paper. Additionally, we provide a refillable bottle to all our clients travelling to Peru (water tanks are provided in each of our car), in order to reduce the occurrence of plastic waste.
At Cultural Immersion we are buying local, organic products, wherever possible. Almost all products we buy are produced in the local communities in the Cusco area and are bought on the local markets in Cusco.
At the Cultural Immersion Travel Peru office in Cusco, we only use recycled paper. Additionally, we mainly work online and therefore have reduced our printing to the minimum. Additionally, all paper that is only used for internal use is printed double-sided.
Heating
At our Cultural Immersion office in Cusco, there is no heating installed to the building (as it is a house of colonial times, which is now protected by the UNESCO). We have a gas heating, which is just used in emergency of very cold winter days.
Lighting
At our Cultural Immersion office in Cusco, we have replaced all lightbulbs with energy saving bulbs of LEDs. Additionally, office lightning is switched off completely after office hours.
Technical Equipment
At Cultural Immersion Travel Peru, we compare energy usage when purchasing new equipment for our office. Additionally, we switch off all our technical equipment at night (excluding our safety system). We therefore use plug boxes with on/off switches.
At Cultural Immersion Travel Peru, we have reduced the use of water to the minimum and trained our staff with relation to this issue. We additionally have a toilet with a water saving push-button.
Waste Legislation
At Cultural Immersion Travel Peru, we comply with the national law regarding waste disposal.
Waste Reduction
At Cultural Immersion Travel Peru, we have committed ourselves to reduce the production of waste in our company to a minimum. In our office, we mainly work online and have therefore reduced the amount of printed paper to a minimum. Additionally, we are printing every paper double sided and without colors. We do not use any disposable coffee cups, plates, etc. or packaging in the office or for our tours and buy all food/ingredients for our office and our tours in bulk on the local market. We provide refillable aluminum bottles to all our travelers upon arrival and have bigger refillable water containers in all our cars, in order to reduce the use of plastic bottles of our clients (especially important as the water from the sink is not drinkable in Peru). Finally, we have a strict policy for waste disposal on our tours. In cooperation with our partner agencies, tour guides and drivers, we have made sure that there is no kind of waste left in the natural environment or in the local communities, which have no possibility of proper waste disposal. The waste produced is taken to the next bigger city, where it is disposed properly.
Recycling of Waste
At Cultural Immersion, waste is currently disposed through the government waste management system and is therefore out of our control. However, we are in the process of revising private options for the recycling of the waste produced in our office or during our tours.
Toner/Ink
At the Cultural Immersion office in Cusco, we use refillable cartridges.
Waste water treatment
At Cultural Immersion, waste water is disposed through the government sewage system and is therefore out of our control. However, due to our company type, we produce relatively low levels of waste water.
Staff Travel Policy
At Cultural Immersion Travel Peru, we have a strict policy regarding mobility. All our employees are motivated to travel to work walking or by public transport, instead of using their own car or a cab. Additionally, we promote the use of bicycles for our employees with a re-imbursement policy.
Business Travel Emission
At Cultural Immersion Travel Peru, we have reduced business traveling to the minimum. With partners inside Peru, we usually rely on telephone conversations and only travel if it is inevitable. For generating new partners, we make sure to have several business-related meetings in the same region, to make business travelling as efficient as possible.With our international partners, we exclusively communicate via the internet - we therefore usually use video meetings via Skype.
At Cultural Immersion Travel Peru, we are not responsible for the international flights of our clients as the international flights are arranged by our clients independently. For the transportation from destination to destination inside Peru, we offer sustainable alternatives to our clients wherever possible. Unfortunately, there is no train system existing in Peru (excluding a few very expensive luxury trains) and distances are often too far for bus journeys. However, wherever possible, we offer alternative bus or train trips to our client, in order to air travel or private transportation.
At Cultural Immersion Travel Peru, we have carefully selected our transportation suppliers and work with all our suppliers for several years.
All cars, vans, busses, etc., used by our transportation suppliers, are new, comfortable and comply with all regulations with regards to CO2-Emissions.
At Cultural Immersion Travel Peru, we give preference to accommodations with certificates acknowledged by the Global Sustainable Tourism Council (GSTC). If there are no suitable certified accommodations, preference is given to accommodations with a good and verifiable reputation on sustainability behavior.
At Cultural Immersion Travel Peru, we comply with international legislation and do not accept child labor (as defined in ILO norm no. 138) not only within our company but also with our suppliers.
Additionally, we do not tolerate child prostitution at the premises and facilities of subcontracted accommodations.
Cultural Immersion Travel Peru will end the contractual agreement prematurely if the accommodation does not take adequate measures to prevent sexual exploitation of children or employs children under the age of 16.
At Cultural Immersion Travel Peru, we give preference to accommodations and restaurants that incorporate elements of local art, architecture, or cultural heritage, while respecting the intellectual property rights of local communities
At Cultural Immersion Travel Peru, we aim at providing an authentic, local experience to travelers from all over the world. In terms of hotels, we (wherever possible) give preference to smaller, family-owned hotels (instead of big chains) that offer a personalized service and an authentic local experience.
In case of evidence that contracted accommodations jeopardize the provision or integrity of basic services such as food, water, energy, healthcare or soil to the neighboring communities it is a reason to terminate the co-operation with the accommodation.
At Cultural Immersion Travel Peru, we do not offer excursions that harm humans, animals, plants, natural resources (e.g. water/energy), or which are socially/culturally unacceptable. We do not offer activities that negatively impact the natural, cultural or social environment.
Wildlife species are not harvested, consumed, displayed, sold, or traded, except as part of a regulated activity that ensures that their utilisation is sustainable and in compliance with local, national and international law.
Excursions which include interactions with wildlife comply with relevant (e.g. Travelife) codes of conduct. They do not lead to any adverse effects on the viability and behavior of populations in the wild. Any disturbance of natural ecosystems is minimized.
At Cultural Immersion we only work with licenced, local tour guides. All our tour guides have been grown up in the region they are working in and have a special dedication to the protection and conservation of the natural and cultural heritage of the country.
At Cultural Immersion Travel Peru (as stated in the name), we are mainly focussing on cultural experience. That is why we include at least one visit at a local community in every package we offer. This visit enables tourist, to get to know the authentic culture of the Peruvian Andes, Highlands, Amazion, etc. and gives them the chance to interact with the locals and take part in their daily routine. At this point we take care that we only take small groups to the community. In the community, the tourists are offered local food and can purchase traditional crafts. We herenby support the local communities economically.
If requested, we also take our clients to the social projects we are supporting, e.g. to our christmas celebration in the poorest Andean communities or to the local school in Maras that we are supporting since several years.
At Cultural Immersion, we offer packages, that include visits to protected areas, especially in the Peruvian Amazon. When visiting protected areas, we have made sure, that our clients are always guided by local, specially trained tour guides that make sure the fragile ecosystem is not disturbed and that awareness for the need of protection for this area is risen.
The company and its direct service providers do not promote souvenirs which contain threatened flora and fauna species as indicated in the CITES treaty and the IUCN ‘Red List’; historic and archaeological artefacts
At Cultural Immersion Travel Peru, we strongly believe in protecting consumer privacy. That's why we only ask for information related to the services we provide. We never sell, rent, share, trade or give away any personal information to anyone.
At Cultural Immersion Travel Peru, we comply with the relevant standards with regards to marketing and advertising messages and do not promise more than is delivered.
Product and price information is clear, complete and accurate with regards to the company and its products and services.