The communities make decisions and set up programs autonomously. In this case the communities are the owners of the tourism programs and have the right to manage it with the purpose of encouraging sustainability and enable a better understanding among visitors and the community.

If locals design their own vision of tourism in their community, they will be able to mitigate many of the negative impacts of tourism. But it needs the right guidance and facilitation, at least in the beginning stages, in order to be feasible and successful. This is where the ESRT Programme support steps in. The process of working on CBT covers the preparation of the communities for tourism, particularly in training and planning. When tourism is planned and managed by the community, the distribution of benefits is much more equitable than it is the case in regular tourism.