Another factor is that charitable development agencies and foundations have been ill-equipped with the development or promotion of community tourism initiatives. Too often representatives visit a community and tell them what might be funded instead of engaging in a dialogue to learn what the communities themselves want or need. Too often marketing experts tell a community to raise their prices to rates that tourists just don't want to pay. Information is crucial, as many of the community projects lack a simple presence in the local tourist office. The number reason for failure seems to be the inability to listen.
Experts have all the answers, or so it is wrongly assumed.
If community-based tourism can succeed it will require strengething the dialogue among experts and locals. Indigenous participation in the tourism industry is the focus of the Rethinking Tourism Project that issued its report Globalization, Tourism and Indigenous Peoples in late 1999. RTP's work is focused. Another successful program is Earthfoot , a non-profit means of promoting local guides throughout the world. Created by Jim Conrad, the program offers benefits for travelers and locals alike.