What the Heck Is Regenerative Tourism, Anyway?

20.06.2024 - 15:01 / skift.com / Rashaad Jorden / Seth Borko / Sarah Kopit

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Kopit: Welcome back to the Skift Travel Podcast. I’m Skift’s Editor-in-Chief Sarah Kopit, joined as always by Seth Borko, Skift’s head of research.

So it goes without saying that the topic of sustainability has been a pressing issue across practically every facet of humanity for quite a while now. And travel, with its size and impact, has figured prominently into this conversation. And while as an industry, we’re still largely grappling with what exactly travel looks like when it’s truly sustainable, a new, related but distinct concept has started to emerge.

And that’s the idea of regenerative tourism. And to help us talk through and better understand this emerging concept, we are happy to be joined today by Skift Research Analyst Robin Gilbert-Jones. Hey, Robin, how are you doing?

Gilbert-Jones: I’m great. Glad to be here.

Kopit: So Robin’s the lead author of a Skift Research report titled Regenerative Tourism Fact from Fiction. And he’s also spent many years focused on corporate responsibility and sustainability. So, Robin, let’s just jump right in. I’m kind of a novice on this. I’ve heard the term, but can’t tell you much about it. What the heck is regenerative tourism and how is it different from sustainable tourism?

Gilbert Jones: Well, you’re certainly not alone there. It’s not always the most well-understood or well-defined concept, and it’s pretty new. But the basic idea is to leverage tourism to leave destinations, communities and the environment better off than they would have been without tourism. So in short, you’re trying to maximize positive impacts as opposed to just minimizing harmful impacts.

And it’s kind of become attached to that whole post-Covid build back better concept. So taking a leap forward from sustainable tourism or certainly advocates of regenerative tourism can see it as taking a leap forward from sustainable tourism. So it certainly sees itself as something new and revolutionary and distinct from what we would traditionally call sustainable tourism.

There are some other distinct aspects of it as well. So it tends to emphasize — not just newness and innovation — but rediscovery of traditional wisdom. So if you look at destinations in, for example, Australasia and Latin America, it incorporates aspects of indigenous traditions and spirituality. And it also generally has a very strong community focus and emphasizes culturally immersive experiences and volunteerism for travelers.

So it kind of makes them more participants as opposed to just tourists.

Borko: So it’s kind of like a little more holistic — like sustainable tourism is very science based, and maybe this is a more holistic