The project's purpose is to use experiments currently being carried out in various countries in order to analyze the conditions conducive to developing forms of tourism in line with the stated sustainability criteria, and to suggest methodologies for implementing these new approaches as well as for their follow-up and evaluation. This will involve transforming experimentation into development programmes for emerging countries and offering validated methodological tools to national authorities.

The first phase will consist of identifying experiments in progress, selecting the "best practices," and analysing and evaluating them in order to identify the appropriate model-building parameters. This "expertise" will be able to make use of comparative data from similar experiments carried out in developed countries, particularly in fragile rural areas.
The financial and methodological assistance for these experiments will make it possible to verify, during a second phase, the feasibility of their increased use and of their ability to have a greater impact on the diversification and qualitative improvement of tourism in these countries.

The project will directly benefit village communities involved in developing this form of tourism as well as local authorities, who should enjoy an increase in revenues from tourism and a greatly enhanced image abroad. It will indirectly benefit customers, who will have access to better information about the products available and a more diversified offer, and who, because of the labels that can be used, will have greater confidence in the redeployment of monetary flows towards local populations.

Governments:
Government of Burkina Faso - Regional Agency for Support and Consulting on Tourism and Development (ARTODEV)
Government of France - Agency for Tourist Engineering (AFIT)
Government of France - Dept of Devt and Technical Cooperation (DCT)
Government of France - Dept of Tourism, Mission for Internat. Affairs
Government of France - Ministry of Foreign Affairs (DGCID)
Government of France - Ministry of Public Amenities, Transport, etc

Major Groups:
CROQ'Nature (registered travel association) (France)
French Platform for Fair Trade (France)
ELVELLAH (Mauritania)

Other intergovernmental organizations:
Permanent Conference on Rural Tourism (France)

Other:
European Business School (EAP) (France)