On 5 December 2025, Exploor Peru was awarded CALTUR ORO by MINCETUR – Peru’s Ministry of Foreign Trade and Tourism. It is Peru’s highest tourism quality certification, and one of the hardest to earn.
We want to explain what this means, what we had to go through to get it, and why it matters for the travelers who trust us with their trips.
CALTUR is Peru’s national tourism quality program, run directly by MINCETUR. It exists to raise and standardise service quality across Peru’s tourism industry – and to give travelers a way to identify operators who meet rigorous, independently verified standards.
The ORO (Gold) tier is the highest level of CALTUR certification. It is not awarded based on reviews or self-assessment. It requires passing a comprehensive audit conducted by an official CALTUR representative – covering every area of the business, in practice, not just on paper.
Very few tour operators in Peru hold it.
The road to CALTUR ORO was not a single step. It required two layers of audit – internal and external.
First, we conducted a thorough internal audit of our own operations. This covered every department and every process: how we develop and evaluate products, how we select and assess providers, how we manage safety protocols, how our reservations system works, how we onboard and train staff, and how we meet our accounting, legal and fiscal obligations.
Nothing was off-limits. We reviewed internal quality assessments of staff performance, supplier contracts, operational flows and management systems across the board.
Then came the external audit. A CALTUR representative visited our operations and reviewed our systems first-hand, not from a report, but in practice. The audit covered:
Every one of these areas had to meet MINCETUR’s standards – not just partially, but comprehensively.
When you book with an operator who holds CALTUR ORO, you’re not relying on star ratings or marketing claims. You’re booking with a company that has been independently verified – by a government body – across every aspect of how they operate.
That means the guide who meets you at the airport has been properly trained. The hotel we recommend has been evaluated. The safety protocols for your trek are in place. The contract you sign is legally sound. The team handling your reservation is working to a documented standard.
It means that when we say we handle every detail – we’ve had to prove it.
When Erik and Oliver founded Exploor Peru in 2015, they built the company as a direct response to what they saw was wrong with Peru’s tourism industry – agencies that cut corners, guides paid unfairly, travelers leaving without having truly experienced the country.
CALTUR ORO is external validation that we’ve built something different. That the standards we hold ourselves to internally are real, verifiable and recognized by the Peruvian state.
It also matters for our travelers – particularly those coming from Europe and North America, who expect the same rigour from a boutique travel agency in Peru that they would from a certified operator anywhere else in the world.
Receiving CALTUR ORO is not a destination – it’s a standard to maintain and build on. The certification requires ongoing compliance, and we approach it the same way we approach every trip we run: with the attention to detail that German precision demands, and the genuine passion for Peru that brought us here in the first place.
We are proud of this recognition. And we are grateful to every traveler who has trusted us over the past 10 years – because without you, there would be nothing to certify.
Exploor Peru’s CALTUR ORO certificate, awarded by Vice minister of tourism Nancy Aracelly Laca Ramos – December 2025.
Exploor Peru is a boutique travel agency founded in Cusco in 2015. Browse our Peru tours or start planning your custom trip.
Verified in the official CALTUR quality tourism registry – search “Exploor Peru”.
