Demo site — Arsu Tours is not a real company. Nothing here can be booked. What this is

أرصو
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The ledger

Where the money goes, line by line.

Most of what you pay should stay with the people you actually meet. This is the split, what it funds, and — since this is a demonstration site — a clear statement that every figure on this page is invented.

Every number on this page is invented. Illustrative breakdown. The percentages, the guild count and the annual totals are invented for the demo — there is no company behind them.

100%Workshop fees paid directly to the maker (illustrative)
45Craft guilds we book work with, across three cities (illustrative)
8%Of every booking into the guild restoration fund (illustrative)
$120kInto workshop repairs and apprentice tools, 2025 (illustrative)

One booking, broken down

Seven-day journey · per person · $1,250

Amounts update with the currency you chose in the header. The Syrian pound figures use the redenominated currency introduced on 1 January 2026, at an indicative rate.

Beds and tables

Courtyard houses, family hotels, the kitchens that feed us

34%$425

Guides and drivers

Monthly wages, not per-traveller piecework

22%$275

Roads and entries

Fuel, vehicles, site tickets, permissions

14%$175

Workshops

Paid to the maker in full, receipted in front of you

12%$150

Guild restoration fund

Set aside on payment, spent on roofs, looms and tools

8%$100

Running Arsu

Office in Damascus, insurance, tax, this website

10%$125

What is actually true here

The crafts are real, even though this company is not. Aleppo soap — sabon ghar, laurel and olive oil, cured six to nine months — was inscribed on UNESCO’s Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in December 2024. Damascene brocade, mother-of-pearl marquetry and the Hama norias are all living trades with people still working in them.

UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage lists ↗