3 www.theculturalexperience.com • 0345 475 1815 • info@theculturalexperience.com A little about The Cultural Experience Our Team. We are a small but highly professional travel team with a passion for history. We enjoy building and maintaining personal relationships with our clients, many of whom become friends. As much as you do, we look forward to travelling with you on these special journeys that we have diligently created. See us on page 9. Our Ethos is based on three principles: • Using sound research and planning to create a three-dimensional version of history (human, time and space) – and to place the colourful characters and exciting events concerned at the very locations they came together. • Using experienced expert guides, chosen for their extensive knowledge and ability to pull these three dimensions together in an engaging and entertaining manner – so you can virtually‘touch and feel’what it would have been like at the time. • Putting all this in the cultural context of the local countryside, customs and cuisine – in a relaxed but organised way. This is what The Cultural Experience is all about: providing a well-planned quality themed tour which is informative, informal and inclusive – aimed at both enthusiasts and those with a general interest in history and travel. For more details see‘What to Expect’on the next page. We hope you enjoy browsing our brochure and remember: if you cannot find your ideal tour here, we will devise a bespoke one for you - just ask! Our Services. As our range of tours expand, so do our range of services. We now offer:- • Scheduled Tours: These are our all-inclusive pre-arranged tours – and the main subject of this brochure. • Bespoke Tours: These are tailor-made tours for individuals, groups and specialist organisations, such as military units and schools. • Travel Service: Finally, as a travel company in our own right, we are able to cater for specialist travel and accommodation needs, particularly for those guests travelling long distances – and to arrange extensions to, or linking travel between, our scheduled tours. WELCOME Another year has gone already, the busiest one so far for The Cultural Experience. Thank you to everyone who has travelled with us. Via our customer surveys we are proud to share that virtually everybody who holidayed with us over the last 12 months said our tours met their expectations, represented great value for money and that they would travel with us again. The on-line independent review site, Feefo, rates us as 4.8/5.0 for both our products and experience. We continue to share your holiday experiences via our fortnightly email and on our Facebook page both retrospectively and with‘live’tour reports, pictures and videos and I encourage you to continue to share your memories with us and your fellow travellers through these mediums. Sharing is a key component of what we offer at The Cultural Experience. You continue to tell us where you want to travel and what period of history you wish to indulge in and we work with you to deliver new products to achieve those goals. You only have to look inside at the new tours for evidence of this symbiotic relationship. I’ve enjoyed sharing experiences, culture, knowledge and opinions with everyone on every tour in which I’ve participated: in ‘the field’, as we’ve travelled, over a drink at the bar and whilst enjoying some great dinners. Like you, in the company of new and old friends and acquaintances, I’ve been to places that I never thought I would get the chance to visit, heard their significance explained by experts and explored them to my heart’s content. I’ve no plans to stop travelling and it is my hope that within this brochure you will find plenty of tours to inspire you to join me, or any one of our plethora of expert historians, on the holiday of a lifetime. Alan Rooney Director, The Cultural Experience