You probably have heard the ‘leaving a place better than it was’ or ‘making a net positive impact’, but there is much more to regenerative tourism. It is about restoring people, places, and nature. Indeed, making a positive impact for all while reducing the negative impact as much as possible. But to be able to do this, a new way of thinking in tourism is necessary, which asks for a lot more than simply making a positive impact. Roughly six principles can be extracted from conversations about regenerative tourism development that are needed for this. I discuss them below.
1. Net positive impact
Alright, let’s start with the most heard and also most misused principle from regenerative tourism: net positive impact. As I already mentioned in the introduction, making a net positive impact is more than just doing something positive or doing something good. It is about reducing the negative impact as much as possible and, in addition, making a positive impact – the doing good part. It is the sum of its parts. Picking up trash from beaches as part of a hotel program is good, but not necessarily regenerative – and not even net positive. To make something net positive, first, different types of negative impacts would have to be reduced, for example using less plastic in the hotel itself and inspiring others in the area to reduce plastic usage. Only then would the addition of beach-clean ups would have an additional positive effect. To make it regenerative, the principles described below would also need to be implemented to some extent. Reducing plastic is great, but what if there is no connection with the local community?
2. Starting from place and the local community
This brings us directly to the next principle of regenerative development, which, in my view, is often overlooked or diminished: connecting with place and the local community. Instead of wondering what tourism brings to a place, the question is reversed. What does this place need? What are the desires of the local community, and what does the physical place need? Is there a way tourism can contribute to that? I’m not only talking about human interests here; regenerative tourism development is as much about the interests of the natural world, which, in regenerative development, is considered to be intrinsically linked to the human (see also principle 5). It is about asking the local community ánd paying close attention to the surroundings. The local community is not a passive actor in this process but has an active role; they are involved from the start as collaborators to learn from and work with, making them part of the whole process. In that sense, regenerative tourism development is very much a place-based and community-driven process. Without community involvement and connecting to place-based interests, an initiative cannot be considered regenerative.
3. Prioritizing prosperity over growth
In regenerative development, growth is not a priority – social and ecological values are. Using a regenerative lens means investing in the well-being of people and places in the broadest sense of the word. This means that when it comes to the people, planet, profit balance, profit is part of the people element and not a factor weighing in on its own. At the same time, growth is not forbidden, but secondary to other goals. If a certain development is desired at a destination, let’s say an increase in facilities for residents, tourism growth could be a way to achieve this. At the same time, if there is much visitor pressure in a place already, either in terms of social pressure or on natural areas, it might be wise not to focus on growth but instead restore these social or ecological elements.
4. Seeing tourism as being part of a broader system
In regenerative tourism, tourism is seen as part of a broader system. It is not an isolated sector but a system that is embedded in many others. They are interdependent, work in collaboration, and exchange with other sectors and levels of governance. In regenerative tourism, it is important to include this systemic thinking in our way of doing. This could be thinking beyond the tourism sector and include connections and interdependencies with agriculture, infrastructure, the built environment, food systems, and so on. But it could also mean including different levels of governance and that the impact beyond one’s own operations is considered, for example, by looking at the impact at the municipal, regional, national, or even global level. This also means that the positive impact of tourism goes beyond the tourism sector or the specific tourist organisation, but instead has a positive spillover effect on many other areas and levels as well.
5. Integrating an ecological worldview
Very much related to the previous point is integrating an ecological worldview where tourism is seen as part of a larger, in this case, living system. Regenerative development embraces an ecological worldview where a place (destination) is seen as a living system, a way of thinking and living that originates from Indigenous practices. Part of this worldview is that there is no separation between us and nature. This means considering the interests of nature equally to those of humans, as one does not yield a higher interest than the other, as essentially they are the same. This means that when we do good for nature, we also do good for humans, and vice versa. In practice, we can cultivate this way of thinking and doing, for example, by trying to give nature a voice by asking: if I were to develop this project, how would nature feel about it? Or, how can we align what we do with the rhythm of nature?
6. Contributing to systemic change in tourism
By reading all of the above principles, it might have occurred to you already: something needs to change – the (tourism) system needs to change, which brings us to the last principle. In regenerative tourism, it is not only about practicing what you preach in terms of your own business or project, but also about setting in motion change on a larger scale. Currently, much of the tourism system is still based on traditional, market-driven models that prioritize the tourist over place and local people. To change tourism as a whole, systemic change is needed in which this growth-based thinking is replaced with a form of tourism that focuses on the principles above: it is place-based and connects with local people and the environment. It may sound abstract and complex to work on systemic change, but in practice, it can have many different forms, and you can, of course, start small. It could mean, for example, lobbying for political change or sharing knowledge and tools, but also setting up a network of people working towards the same goal and setting an example for others. All those steps together will eventually lead to a transition in the tourism system.
Many of these insights are based on previous work from regenerative practitioners and researchers. Want to know more? Check out the work of these women. Anna Pollock, Dianne Dredge, Loreta Belatto, Michelle Holliday
