Responsible Travel

Responsible travel, as we understand it, is not a separate programme but part of how we design and run our tours.

Peter Sommer Travels was founded on the belief that thoughtful travel should benefit the places being visited as much as the people visiting them. We have worked this way since 1996 and it informs the choices we make, both in the partners we work with and in how we travel ourselves.  We believe that our small group cultural tours in  Croatia,  Greece,  Italy,  Montenegro,  Turkey and the UK are a positive force, enlightening our customers and bringing economic benefits to local people.

Below we set out our approach across three areas: economic, social, and archaeological. We also explain what our AITO membership means in practice and how guests can travel alongside us in a spirit of shared responsibility.

Alongside the wider responsible travel approach set out below, we also work throughout the year to reduce the environmental impact of our operations in practical ways. We look for improvements each season, so that our work becomes steadily more sustainable over time. This is covered in more detail on our sustainability page, including our current priorities and the steps we are taking across our tours and operations. Please visit our Sustainability page for more details.

Economic Responsibility

Keeping money in local hands is the most direct contribution a tour operator can make to the communities it visits, and it has been central to how we work from the start.

• • Our ground-handling partners are locally owned businesses employing local people. In Turkey, we have worked with the same Turkish-run agency since 1996; in Greece, with our local partner since 2014; and in Croatia and Montenegro with the same agent since 2016. These are long-standing partnerships with people who understand how we work and why we work that way.
  • We employ local, professionally accredited guides, drivers and boat crews, many of whom have worked with us for well over a decade. One of our guides in Turkey has been working with Peter since 1994, before Peter Sommer Travels even formally existed as a company. We are proud that many of these working relationships now go back decades and matter to us personally as well as professionally. We believe in continuity of employment, fair pay and treating everyone who works with us with respect.
  • We prefer small, family-run hotels, pansiyons and restaurants to international chains. Money spent in a family guesthouse, where the owners, cooks and housekeeping staff are all local people, stays local and works far harder in the community than money spent in a corporate hotel that sends its profits elsewhere.
  • We encourage guests to shop with local artisans, market traders and village craftspeople. On the question of haggling, which is common in many of the markets we visit, we ask guests to be thoughtful. In a busy city bazaar, a negotiated price is expected and part of the game; in a rural village where a family depends on the sale of handmade goods, we encourage guests to bargain reasonably and respectfully.

Social Responsibility

Travel has the capacity to broaden understanding, but only if you approach it with genuine curiosity and respect. We try to create the right conditions for that.

• • Before departure, every guest receives a detailed background guide covering the history, politics, culture, religion and customs of the country they are visiting. We want our guests to arrive informed and open, not bewildered or inadvertently offensive.
  • We brief guests on local dress codes, customs and social conventions in religious sites, rural communities and private settings. Respect for local culture is not an optional extra. It matters enormously to the kind of travel we try to encourage.
  • We work to connect our guests with local people as equals. We share meals with the guardians and caretakers of the archaeological sites we visit, many of whom live in remote areas. In several cases we have been returning to the same families, paying them to prepare traditional food for our groups, for more than fifteen years. These relationships matter to us, and we hope they matter to the families too.
  • We encourage guests to learn a handful of words in the local language. The goodwill it generates is quite out of proportion to the effort involved.
  • Our groups are deliberately small, typically no more than twelve to eighteen people. This is partly an environmental choice, but it is also a social one: smaller groups fit more naturally into local settings, attract less attention and make real exchange far more possible.

Archaeological Responsibility

Most tour operators visit archaeological sites. Very few have a deep, working knowledge of them. Many of our tour leaders are practising archaeologists and so take the protection of archaeological record extremely seriously.

• • We make absolutely clear to all guests that archaeological and historic sites require real care. We ask guests not to climb on ancient structures, walk along excavation edges or move stones and fragments from their original position. Even small disturbances can damage the stratigraphic record in ways that cannot be undone.
  • We advise guests in the strongest possible terms against removing any objects from sites, however small or apparently unremarkable. Taking artefacts, whether pottery sherds, coins, or tile fragments, is illegal in every country we operate in and causes irreversible damage to the scientific record.
  • We also advise against purchasing antiquities of uncertain provenance. The trade in such objects fuels illegal looting and the destruction of irreplaceable sites. If there is any doubt about something being offered for sale, do not buy it.
  • Where our tours visit sites with active research or conservation work under way, we engage with that work respectfully and, where possible, support it, including by directing income to the local families and guardians who maintain and care for these places.
  • We work only with guides and site managers who share these values. Care for archaeological sites lies at the heart of the way we travel.

Our AITO Membership

Peter Sommer Travels is a long-standing member of AITO (the Association of Independent Tour Operators), the UK trade body for specialist, independent travel companies with genuine expertise in their destinations, as distinct from volume-driven package operators.

AITO members commit to a detailed Responsible Tourism standard covering environmental, social and economic practice. Membership is not self-certified: AITO monitors compliance and expects members to demonstrate real progress over time, not simply make pledges. Our ratings from AITO-verified reviews reflect the actual experience of guests who have travelled with us.

Travelling Together

Responsible tourism is not something we can achieve on our own. It depends on the people travelling with us. Thankfully, most of our guests already travel with curiosity, experience and consideration for the places they visit, but it helps to say plainly what we hope for.

When you travel with us, we ask that you:

• • Treat local people, whether working with us or not, with warmth, fairness and genuine respect.
  • Engage with local customs, dress codes and traditions, especially in religious buildings and rural communities.
  • Learn a word or two of the local language. It goes further than you might think.
  • Stay on marked paths and treat natural and archaeological sites with care.
  • Never remove or purchase archaeological objects, however small or apparently trivial.
  • Read about the history, culture and politics of the places you visit. The more you bring to a place, the more you take away.

If you are drawn to our kind of tours, you are very likely already travelling with this kind of care and attention.

If you have questions about any aspect of our responsible travel policy, or would like guidance on offsetting your flight emissions, please do get in touch.

Why not take a look at our range of expert-led archaeological tours or gulet cruises, or get in touch so we can help create a wonderful private tour just for you.