Regenerative tourism is emerging as a more ambitious approach to sustainable travel. Rather than focusing primarily on reducing tourism’s environmental and social impacts, it aims to improve destinations by restoring nature, strengthening communities and supporting local economies.
The concept is increasingly relevant to hotels because properties depend on the health and resilience of the places around them. A coastal resort needs healthy beaches and marine ecosystems. A nature-based lodge depends on functioning landscapes and biodiversity. Hotels in remote destinations may rely heavily on local workers, suppliers and businesses.
For hotel owners and operators, regenerative hospitality raises a broader question: how can a hotel contribute to improving the environmental, social and economic systems on which its destination depends?
What is regenerative tourism?
Sustainable tourism is generally concerned with managing the environmental, social and economic effects of tourism so that destinations remain viable over the long term.
Regenerative tourism places greater emphasis on actively improving the systems on which those destinations depend.
Put simply, sustainability seeks to reduce harm, while regeneration seeks to leave a place better able to thrive.
The distinction is not absolute. Established sustainability frameworks already recognise positive environmental, social and economic impacts. The Global Sustainable Tourism Council (GSTC), for example, includes socioeconomic, cultural and environmental benefits within its sustainability criteria.
Regenerative tourism can therefore be understood not as a replacement for sustainability, but as an approach that places particular emphasis on restoring ecosystems, strengthening local livelihoods and ensuring that more of the value created by tourism remains within destinations.
There is no universally recognised definition or certification for a “regenerative hotel”. The term describes an emerging approach rather than a formal category of accommodation.
That makes evidence important. Hotels using the term need to explain what they are trying to improve, who benefits and how progress is measured.
How hotels fit into regenerative tourism
Hotels are a natural part of this discussion because their operations can affect both the environment and the communities around them.
A conventional hotel sustainability programme might focus on reducing energy consumption, water use, waste or emissions. Those measures remain essential. Regenerative hospitality adds another layer by asking whether a property can actively strengthen the systems around it.
In practice, the approach can be considered across three connected areas: nature, community and the local economy.
Nature-related projects can include restoring habitats, protecting biodiversity or improving water systems. Community initiatives can support local culture, participation and livelihoods. Economic measures can include local employment, procurement and ownership structures that keep more tourism revenue circulating within the destination.
The approach can begin before a hotel opens and continue throughout its operation.
Designing hotels around nature
Regeneration can start at the development stage.
Hotel construction can remove vegetation, disturb habitats and place additional pressure on water and other natural resources. A regenerative approach considers how a property can work with the ecological conditions of its site from the outset.
Singapore’s Mandai Rainforest Resort by Banyan Tree illustrates this direction. Developed within the Mandai Wildlife Reserve, the resort was designed around the existing landscape, with measures intended to protect mature trees and reduce disturbance to wildlife.
Parts of the resort were elevated to facilitate wildlife movement, while existing vegetation was incorporated into the development rather than treating the site as a blank canvas. The property began receiving guests in 2025.
The principle can apply in very different environments. Hotel developments can protect existing vegetation, restore degraded land, replace water-intensive landscaping with native plants, create wildlife habitats and design water systems around local conditions.
The important difference is when these considerations are made. Rather than treating biodiversity and landscape restoration as additions to an existing design, this approach considers ecological conditions when decisions about the site, construction and long-term operation are being made.
Restoring ecosystems
Existing hotels can also contribute to regeneration beyond the boundaries of their properties.
This is particularly relevant to resorts whose long-term appeal and resilience depend on healthy beaches, reefs, forests and other ecosystems.
Iberostar, for example, has developed projects involving coral nurseries, mangrove restoration and coastal ecosystems in destinations where it operates. Its 2024 progress reporting said the group had planted 19,000 mangroves in the Dominican Republic and was caring for 58,000 coastal plants as part of its work on coastal health and biodiversity.
The company also operates coral nurseries in the Caribbean and has researched coral species that could prove more resistant to climate change and disease.
Mangrove restoration demonstrates how environmental regeneration can overlap with destination resilience. Mangroves provide wildlife habitat, store carbon and can help protect coastlines from erosion and storm impacts.
But an activity does not automatically amount to regeneration.
Planting trees, restoring corals or creating habitats needs to respond to a genuine ecological need and be monitored over time. The number of trees planted, for example, measures an activity. Their survival, the area of habitat restored and changes in biodiversity provide stronger evidence of an outcome.
Giving guests a role
Regenerative hospitality can also change the relationship between hotels, guests and destinations.
Instead of simply consuming a destination’s natural and cultural attractions, guests can be offered opportunities to understand and support them. Depending on the location, this might involve wildlife monitoring, conservation projects, native tree planting, restoration of walking trails or experiences with local producers and craftspeople.
The objective is not to turn a holiday into unpaid labour. Guest participation is most meaningful when it contributes to a professionally managed project with a genuine local purpose, rather than creating a conservation activity primarily for visitor entertainment.
Research suggests many travellers want their spending to have a more direct local benefit. Booking.com’s 2025 research found that 73% of travellers wanted the money they spend to return to the local community, while 69% wanted to leave places better than when they arrived.
For hotels, credible local initiatives can help connect the guest experience with wider destination priorities. They can also give visitors greater insight into how the impact of a stay extends beyond the hotel itself.
Keeping more tourism value local
Regeneration is not only about landscapes and wildlife.
A destination can attract large numbers of visitors and support successful hotels while retaining relatively little of the economic value generated by tourism. Ownership, procurement, employment and the distribution of profits can all influence how much money continues to circulate locally.
Regenerative hospitality therefore asks who hotels employ, where they buy goods and services, which local businesses benefit from visitors and how much tourism revenue remains within the destination.
Fogo Island Inn in Newfoundland, Canada, provides a distinctive example.
The inn operates as a social business under Shorefast, a registered Canadian charity. According to the property, all operating surpluses are reinvested in Fogo Island through Shorefast’s community programmes and initiatives.
Its model connects the performance of the hotel with the economic and cultural wellbeing of the island.
Shorefast has also developed an initiative called Economic Nutrition, which is intended to make the economic effects of spending more transparent by showing where money goes and how much remains within the local economy.
The example highlights an aspect of regeneration that can be less visible than a restored forest or coral reef. Local procurement, employment and ownership structures can influence whether tourism strengthens a destination’s economy or simply generates economic activity within it.
Hotels do not need to replicate Fogo Island Inn’s ownership model to apply the principle. Operators can measure how much they spend with locally owned suppliers, increase local sourcing, develop recruitment and training programmes, and help independent businesses participate in the visitor economy.
What regeneration means for hotel owners
For hotel owners and operators, regenerative hospitality raises an obvious commercial question: can improving a destination also strengthen the hotel business?
There is no universal answer. Regenerative projects can require capital, specialist expertise, partnerships and long-term monitoring. Their financial returns may also be difficult to separate from other factors affecting a hotel’s performance.
Yet the interests of a hotel and its destination can overlap.
A coastal resort depends on the quality and resilience of the coastline around it. A nature-based property relies on healthy landscapes and biodiversity. Hotels facing water scarcity depend on functioning local water systems, while properties in remote destinations may depend heavily on local suppliers and labour markets.
Strengthening those systems can therefore contribute to the resilience of the hotel as well as the destination.
Regeneration can also influence decisions about development, procurement, recruitment, community relationships and destination planning.
The business case may consequently be less about charging a premium for a “regenerative” hotel room and more about protecting the environmental and social conditions that allow a property and its destination to prosper over the long term.
Measuring regeneration
As interest in regenerative travel grows, the industry faces a familiar problem: greenwashing can acquire a new vocabulary.
Calling a hotel “regenerative” does not prove that regeneration is taking place. Without clear definitions and measurements, almost any sustainability initiative could potentially be presented under the label.
Credible regeneration therefore requires hotels to move beyond describing activities and demonstrate outcomes.
A useful starting point is to establish a baseline, identify the intervention, select relevant measures, define a timeframe and report the results.
For a biodiversity project, this could mean measuring the area and condition of a habitat before restoration, monitoring vegetation or species over time and assessing whether ecological conditions have improved.
For economic regeneration, hotels could track the proportion of procurement spent with locally owned suppliers, local employment and training, or the proportion of tourism expenditure retained within the destination.
Community outcomes can be harder to quantify. An important consideration is whether local people helped determine priorities rather than simply receiving programmes designed by the hotel.
The distinction between outputs and outcomes is critical.
Planting 10,000 trees is an output. How many survive, whether native habitat expands and whether biodiversity improves are outcomes.
Likewise, increasing spending with regional suppliers is an activity. Demonstrating that locally owned businesses and households receive greater economic benefit provides stronger evidence of regeneration.
Sustainability certification can help demonstrate that a hotel meets recognised environmental and social standards. But certification should not automatically be treated as proof that a property is regenerative. The two concepts are not interchangeable, and there is currently no single globally accepted certification defining a regenerative hotel.
For owners and operators, transparent reporting may therefore matter more than the label itself.
From reducing impact to strengthening destinations
Regenerative hospitality does not make conventional sustainability obsolete.
Lower energy use, reduced emissions, responsible water management and waste reduction remain fundamental to responsible hotel operations. Regeneration adds another question: can the hotel also strengthen the environmental, economic and social systems on which its destination depends?
That could mean restoring habitat around a resort, improving the health of a watershed, creating stronger markets for local food producers or keeping more tourism value within the surrounding community.
It also means looking beyond the property itself. A hotel ultimately depends on the resilience and attractiveness of the place around it, from its natural resources and infrastructure to its workforce, culture and communities.
Regenerative hospitality is therefore less a new category of hotel than a different way of understanding the relationship between a property and its destination.
As climate risks, biodiversity loss and pressure from tourism increase in some destinations, that relationship is likely to face greater scrutiny.
The test for regenerative hotels will ultimately be not what they claim to give back, but what they can demonstrate has changed, who has benefited and whether those improvements can last.
Mohamed Dabo
