Taking Regenerative Tourism to Scale – Everyone has a Role to Play

This article first appeared on RegenerativeTravel website on December 2, 2020

The travel and tourism sector is at a pivotal moment in its evolution. There are those who believe things will return to normal – or a new normal – once vaccines become widely available. And there are those who recognize the need for radical change. This group cites all the evidence illustrating that the pace of global change is increasing and the existing economic system is failing due to inherent flaws made evident by an obsession with continuous growth and the culture around how many define success. Tourism cannot grow ad infinitum and remain largely unaccountable for its externalities. The good news is that it doesn’t need to. We can build tourism back better through regenerative tourism. Tourism can regenerate cultural heritage, communities and degraded ecosystems, and support their recovery.  

Evolving Beyond Sustainable Tourism to Regenerative Tourism

Tourism has inherent negative environmental impacts and is extractive in nature when it’s not well-managed.  Sustainable tourism is oftentimes focused on sustaining current tourism activities and or limiting environmental damage and negative impacts on host communities. Avoiding the use of plastics, hiring and buying locally, using renewable energy and the like are all well-known examples. It’s not enough. 

If we are to resuscitate a dying economy and the natural systems that sustain all life, we have to take a completely different approach to tourism development and management. Regenerative tourism has quickly emerged as the solution, but it’s no silver bullet. It is a complete deviation from the industrial production and consumption tourism model. Embracing and fostering such change requires a shift in mindset to understand how tourism and hospitality, and the heritage, economy, and ecology of a place work together as a living system. 

There is no globally accepted definition for regenerative tourism. It’s focused on how tourism can make destinations better for both current and future generations. It involves tourism businesses, communities, donors, and government collectively drawing upon tourism to holistically make net positive contributions to the well-being of visitors, residents, host communities, and the environment to help them flourish and create shared prosperity. 

There is no one size fits all approach. And, according to the regenerative tourism visionary and thought-leader, Anna Pollock, it is not possible to plan or micro-manage a regenerative recovery. It is, however, possible to create the conditions that enable a living system to survive, thrive and evolve. This applies to the tourism system, and everyone involved in the value chain has a role to play.

Fortunately, a number of examples are emerging. Destinations and stakeholders around the world – from small businesses and community members working together to regenerate clear-cut rainforest and farmlands to large municipalities and countries embracing doughnut economics – are implementing regenerative recovery strategies.    

“The experience between a host and visitor is the essence of tourism.” – Brian T. Mullis

Looking at Tourism as a Living System

The experience between a host and visitor is the essence of tourism. It all centers on the interconnection between people and places. Therefore, it makes sense to look at how to scale regenerative tourism at a destination level from the perspective of travelers, tourism enterprises and communities.  

Starting with travelers, it doesn’t matter what research you look at from the last decade, the number of travelers who are making travel decisions based on their personal values is increasing. The latest research from Booking.com found that in the U.S. alone, 69% of travelers identify sustainable travel as important to them, and 53% are planning to make sustainable choices when looking to travel again in the future. While more are avoiding flying to reduce their own environmental footprints, those with the desire to travel via plane will increasingly be able to justify long-haul flights if they can help regenerate the places they visit.  

Imagine if more of the hospitality sector committed to supporting regenerative agriculture and habitat restoration on their properties and in the communities they serve. Ecosystem Restoration Camps is working with 37 tourism enterprises around the world to restore and renew the basic natural function of degraded land, so that life can return, increasing biodiversity and ecosystem services in the process. It involves a hands-on approach and direct-action from travelers. The Via Organica Ranch in San Miguel de Allande, Mexico, is one of their partners developing working models of how farmers can regenerate rural landscapes and rural livelihoods, on every continent, in every nation. 

The ranch is itself a working model for how 75 hectares of once degenerated farmland and pastureland can become a regeneration hub in the semi-arid highlands of Mexico, producing nutritious regenerative organic vegetables, herbs, fruits, seeds, and animal products for several thousand people. Visitors learn different organic and regenerative farming/land rehabilitation techniques including biointensive gardening, compost making, seed-saving, and tree-planting. Their plan is to revegetate the desertified landscapes of Mexico, the southern US, and beyond, with a polyculture of mesquite, nopal and agave plants, all native to Mexico. 

An aerial view of Rewa Eco Lodge in Guyana | Photo Credit: Zachary Johnston

Putting Communities at the Heart of Tourism 

Communities have always been at the heart of tourism, but haven’t been treated that way. There is a need to move the power to the people by investing in community building and developing their capacity to use tourism to improve resident well-being. This requires a shift from centralized power to inclusion and decentralized empowerment. Guyana, which is increasingly becoming known for community-led and owned tourism, offers an inspiring example.

Throughout Guyana, several Indigenous communities own and operate their own eco-lodges. Rewa Village is one of them. Tourism economically benefits every community member and enables the community to protect the ecosystem it depends on, which has a local and global benefit. This community, which is home to more than 300 inhabitants, also manages a large conservation area of 350 square kilometers (271 square miles). This pristine rainforest ecosystem absorbs more than 70,000 tons of CO2 per year. Each traveler that visits generates about 2.8 tons of CO2 per person, including international and domestic flight emissions. With 200 travelers per year, this equates to 560 tons of CO2 per year. 

This is one small example that illustrates how travel can create net positive community and environmental benefits. The model applies to large municipalities as well. Doughnut economics is a framework that supports regenerative tourism, combining the concept of planetary boundaries with the complementary concept of social boundaries that is designed to foster shared prosperity locally and globally. It, and similar models, are being embraced by an increasing number of communities from Amsterdam and Berlin to Philadelphia and Portland.

“The majority of Kenya’s wildlife now resides on local communities’ and private landowners’ lands.” – Brian T. Mullis

Regenerating Landscapes  

Imagine if the enabling environment for private and community protected areas improved in countries worldwide, helping to revitalize ecosystems and increase biodiversity and ecosystem services. 

There are numerous examples of how tourism in Africa has been designed to support regenerative outcomes. The Northern Rangelands Trust (NRT) represents one of them. The 15-year-old NRT has a growing membership of 39 community conservancies covering 4.4 million hectares, across 10 counties in northern Kenya. 15 years ago much of the land in this region was used for unsustainable free-range livestock grazing. Local communities were not actively managing the health of their rangelands. That coupled with climate change severely degraded the rangelands and fragmented the ecosystem. NRT, through the community conservancies, is working to reverse the trend through active restoration and management of the rangelands to strengthen resilience. Local communities are now actively managing their rangelands.

NRT-member conservancies now provide vital range and landscape connectivity for critically endangered and endangered wildlife, and in some cases host a large proportion of their national or global populations. Populations of eight endangered large mammals have been stabilized and four of the eight are growing. These include hirola, black rhino, Tana River red colobus, Tana crested mangabey, African wild dog, Grevy’s zebra, reticulated giraffe and Beisa oryx and two endangered sea turtles; green and hawksbill turtles.    

NRT’s success led to community conservancies being recognized under the Kenya Wildlife Conservation and Management Act 2013, which exemplifies the important role communities and private landowners are playing in protecting and conserving Kenya’s wildlife outside formal protected areas. The majority of Kenya’s wildlife now resides on local communities’ and private landowners’ lands.

Going to Scale

Now imagine destinations using Indigenous knowledge to build back better. It’s happening. Leading destinations like Hawai’i and New Zealand are embracing regenerative tourism to support a regenerative recovery from the pandemic and manage the inherent risks associated with climate change. Leadership in these destinations understand the need for a holistic and participatory process based on shared values. There’s also an increasing understanding that creating the conditions to unlock the potential unique to each individual, business and community will enable them to realize their own unique potential, so they can contribute to the health and well-being of the whole.

The growth paradox: can tourism ever be sustainable?

This article originally appeared in World Economic Forum Agenda Weekly Expert Edition. 
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Tourism creates jobs — lots of them. In fact, one person in every 10 is employed in tourism-related jobs. When it is well managed, tourism provides an incredible economic boost to host communities. For these reasons, almost every country in the world wishes to expand its tourism sector and increase the number of tourism arrivals.

An increasing number of travelers are significantly more likely to visit destinations and make purchases from travel companies based on their sustainable practices. Many destinations have strategies and plans in place to use tourism to help alleviate poverty and conserve their natural and cultural heritage, for example, through the creation and management of National Parks and monuments. Yet nearly 50% of World Heritage sites, which are recognized by UNESCO for their outstanding universal value, do not have tourism management plans in place to prevent the negative impacts of tourism.

If expanding tourism results in more jobs and greater economic opportunity, why are an increasing number of destinations around the world proposing or implementing measures to limit or restrict it? Destinations like Cinque Terre, Zion National Park and Machu Picchu are limiting the annual number of visitors. Amsterdam, Barcelona and the Seychelles are curtailing large-scale development. Bhutan and Venice charge visitor taxes and fees, while places like Koh Tachai in the Similan National Park are prohibiting visitation altogether.

Why aren’t more destinations focusing on yield per visitor rather than the number of international arrivals? Why aren’t more businesses that are dependent on tourism investing in the destinations they serve and the assets upon which their businesses depend? And why isn’t the industry at large actively addressing these issues?

Image: Destination Better

Tourism and the growth paradox

Global tourism is expected to continue to grow as a larger number of aspiring travelers become more prosperous and their disposable income increases. It is anticipated that the sector will outperform the global economy in the course of the next decade, increasing by an estimated 4% on average annually in the next 10 years.

It’s not surprising that most destinations want a bigger piece of this pie and have strategies in place to attract more visitors and visitor expenditures. Taxpayers’ money is spent on attracting visitors and emphasis is placed on volume rather than the value each visitor represents to the local economy.

The net result is that the places served by ministries of tourism, destination marketing organizations and convention and visitors bureau are often victims of their own success. Travelers tend to arrive in increasing numbers and flock to the same locations, resulting in issues such as overcrowding, increased stress on public services and infrastructure, cultural homogenization and growing dissatisfaction from local residents.

Ad hoc development, local capacity constraints and leakage are issues as well. The latter is the most frequently cited issue: although tourism can be a great form of wealth distribution, often as little as 5-10% of the money tourists spend remains in the destinations they visit. These issues must be addressed to fully realize the benefits of tourism through an inclusive approach and collaboration between the public and private sectors and host communities.

The travel industry and governments need to acknowledge that the narrow focus on increasing numbers is a problem and creates issues and negative effects that diminish the quality (and value) of the experience for travelers and visitors alike.

Tourism can be an extractive industry

One could argue that tourism cannot be sustainable, that sustainability is impossible. Negative effects on the environment are inherent to the industry, such as the emission of greenhouse gases and waste generation, that are currently difficult, if not impossible, to avoid. Tourism can also contribute to water and energy shortages, degradation of water supplies and ecosystem degradation, owing to ad hoc development and weak or poorly enforced environmental regulations.

From clear cutting and destruction of mangroves to excavations and construction, land use changes associated with tourism result in the creation of artificial landscapes and infrastructure. This visually degrades the scenic value of natural landscapes and results in a change in the environment, because of factors like erosion, pollution and artificial boundaries. This, in turn, can result in more erosion and increased flooding and storm damage, as well as a negative impact on wildlife migration and breeding patterns.

The tourism sector attracts increased investment in airports, airlines, railways, ports, hotels and tourist attractions, particularly to metropolitan areas, cultural and natural heritage sites, and other attractive locations and landscapes. This can be good for short-term economic development, but bad for residents when tourism development is poorly executed. Historically, local and indigenous people are displaced or forced to relocate when new national parks or heritage sites are established. Prime real estate is sold to developers and local access can be restricted or lost altogether. Though jobs are created for local people, they are usually entry level and low paying with limited opportunities for upward mobility.

The sustainable tourism movement: a fragmented response

Sustainable tourism is on track to go mainstream because it can combat the negative effects of tourism and improve lives, protect places and provide visitors with authentic experiences. But the sustainable tourism movement is as fragmented as the industry itself.

Today’s pursuit of sustainable tourism is replete with small organizations and individual consultants, often battling for small-scale and underfunded projects, and scraps of success. Most players in the space have just one or two staff on payroll and the largest NGOs have fewer than 25 staff. Emphasis in the public and private sector is placed on planning and reporting rather than changing organizational or operational practices, and follow-through on sustainability initiatives is limited because of “resource constraints”. This results in a great deal of competition for the limited resources available and little meaningful collaboration. No single organization is achieving success at scale and, despite good intentions, the cumulative impact is significantly smaller than what is necessary and achievable.

The term sustainable tourism means different things to different people in the industry. But like ecotourism, sustainable tourism has become virtually meaningless as it is often tied to cursory efforts, which are very limited, rather than organization-wide commitments, strategies, and actions.

This is surprising given that the business case for sustainability and corporate responsibility in tourism is growing stronger year-on-year. In fact, the UN declared 2017 the International Year of Sustainable Tourism for Development. Tourism is featured in three of the UN Sustainable Development Goals and all 17 goals can be advanced through sustainable tourism development.

This has resulted in an increased adoption of practices that improve environmental performance and social well-being. These practices lead to significant savings, goodwill among employees and customers, improved employee motivation and retention, and enhanced brand reputation. Businesses engaging in these practices also benefit from attracting customers who care about front-page issues like climate change, biodiversity loss, and economic inequality, who increasingly align their spending with personal values when price, quality and convenience are perceived to be comparable.

Image: Destination Better

Still, few tourism-related companies and destinations have integrated sustainability into their operational DNA. Even fewer are investing in protection of the well-spring that their business depends upon — the destinations in which they conduct their business.

Overall, the tourism sector’s commitment to sustainable development is decidedly weak. It’s understandable when considering tourism, which is, like most other industries, growth-oriented and profit-driven with a relatively short-sighted approach to planning and development. The primary focus is generating a return on investment to increase shareholder value as quickly as possible, or, similar to many politicians, to appease constituents to foster the probability of reelection.

The implications of a linear economic model and short-term thinking

The implications of this current economic and operational model is that nobody really wins. Saturation in destinations and over-capacity results in physical stress on the infrastructure and on natural, cultural, and heritage assets. Commoditization of tourism products and services results in lower margins for tourism businesses. Busy, crowded attractions and sites diminish the quality of the experience for visitors. Highly concentrated versus diversified revenues, congestion and saturation increase negative perceptions of tourism.

Large-scale tourism is beginning to attract public opposition and tensions between residents and visitors are growing in many over-loved destinations, where either or both the quality of life and the quality of the visitor experience have substantively deteriorated. The problems posed by tourism are seemingly growing so fast that we can’t address them. This is a social, environmental, and business challenge.

The opportunity to use tourism as a force for good

Companies, destinations, and travelers need to be more aware of and held accountable for their impact. They all have an important role to play to ensure that tourism lives up to its promise to improve people’s livelihoods and protect the environments they depend upon.

Each player seems to be missing an opportunity to use tourism as a vehicle for social, environmental, and economic advancement. Since there is no single stakeholder group that is solely responsible for generating economic outcomes or preserving a destination’s natural and cultural heritage, collaboration between sectors is required to catalyze the change needed to keep tourism destinations healthy. Truly innovative thinking is needed from destination authorities and business leaders working together to determine how to manage growing visitor numbers, address changing traveler expectations and shape and improve both visitor and host experiences.

Image: Destination Better

There is a substantial opportunity for businesses, visitors, host communities and residents to derive greater benefit from tourism. The strategic use of private, public and community partnerships, for example, supports destination-level tourism strategies, empowers host communities to protect their tourism assets and creates opportunities for private sector enterprises and NGOs throughout the tourism value chain. Residents’ well-being and the visitor experience are improved in the process.

Many problems can be addressed through:

• The utilization of complex collaboration and collective impact methodologies;
• The principles of circular economy;
• Evidence-based policies and planning;
• Regulatory simplification;
• Strategies, like the sharing economy, market-driven enterprise and product development;
• Economic, environmental and social impact measurement;
• Monitoring and reporting across relevant spatial scales.

Cumulatively these efforts will support science-based decision-making and help to mitigate tourism’s negative effects. Furthermore, they can reduce commoditization of the beautiful and historic places on which the tourism industry depends, while providing more opportunities for travelers and tourism businesses. When travel and tourism activities are planned and executed with the impact on communities and commerce in mind, tourism as an industry can live up to its potential as a great catalyst for economic, social and environmental prosperity.