Really, what’s the difference? ‘Sustainable tourism’ vs ‘regenerative tourism’

In des­tin­a­tion and industry prac­tice, what are the differences between ‘sus­tain­able tour­ism’ and ‘regen­er­at­ive tourism’?

Nine differences

Loretta Bellato, PhD candidate, Swinburne University of Technology, Australia

The prac­ti­tion­er pion­eers of regen­er­at­ive tour­ism have been devel­op­ing the approach for 20 years. They see regen­er­at­ive tour­ism as dis­tinct from sus­tain­able tourism. Sus­tain­able tour­ism under­stands tour­ism to be an industry. By com­par­is­on, regen­er­at­ive tour­ism sees tour­ism as a liv­ing sys­tem aligned with the eco­lo­gic­al world­view and regen­er­at­ive paradigm. Regen­er­at­ive tourism’s core pur­pose is to build the capa­city of human and non-human eco­sys­tems to restore, renew, and evolve.

Sus­tain­able tour­ism tends to pur­sue infin­ite eco­nom­ic growth whilst man­aging social and envir­on­ment­al impacts. The sus­tain­able tour­ism approach tends to pri­or­it­ise top-down and stand­ard­ised interventions. In con­trast, regen­er­at­ive tour­ism approaches are co-cre­ated with com­munit­ies. Regen­er­at­ive tour­ism aligns with nature and pri­or­it­ises equal­ity and inclu­sion so that social, eco­lo­gic­al, spir­itu­al, and cul­tur­al devel­op­ment har­mon­ises with the economy.

Both approaches pro­mote the well-being of future gen­er­a­tions: Sus­tain­able tour­ism seeks to lessen the harm done by tour­ism, while regen­er­at­ive tour­ism pur­sues net gain for all stake­hold­ers, includ­ing nature, hosts, vis­it­ors and the loc­al community.

There are nine dis­tinc­tions iden­ti­fied in my research that my col­leagues and I explore in more detail in a recent aca­dem­ic paper. Des­pite these dis­tinc­tions, it is import­ant to note that sus­tain­ab­il­ity is con­sidered an essen­tial and inter­de­pend­ent regen­er­a­tion pro­cess. Sus­tain­ab­il­ity work such as con­ser­va­tion and res­tor­a­tion are main­tained through devel­op­ing regen­er­at­ive capacity. In oth­er words, incor­por­at­ing sus­tain­ab­il­ity meas­ures is part of devel­op­ing regen­er­at­ive places and communities.

Entropy is a law of nature

Wolfgang Georg Arlt, CEO, COTRI China Outbound Tourism Research Institute & Director, Meaningful Tourism Center, Germany

Look it up on your favour­ite search engine and you will see that ‘regen­er­at­ive tour­ism’ is oft-described as leav­ing a place bet­ter than it was before, while ‘sus­tain­ab­il­ity’ is about striv­ing to main­tain what is for as long as possible. Unfor­tu­nately Newton’s second law of ther­mo­dy­nam­ics states that the total entropy of a sys­tem either increases or remains con­stant in any spon­tan­eous pro­cess; it nev­er decreases. In oth­er words, an eco­sys­tem once des­troyed can­not be brought back; a cul­ture or lan­guage extinct can­not spring to life again in the way that it was.

Sus­tain­able tour­ism has often been reduced to the envir­on­ment­al aspect, but the sus­tain­able devel­op­ment goals (SDGs), how­ever unsuc­cess­ful, at least include the social and eco­nom­ic bot­tom lines. Regen­er­at­ive tour­ism is often even more con­cen­trated than sus­tain­able tour­ism on restor­ing the flora and fauna of destinations. Unfor­tu­nately, the effects of the glob­al cli­mate cata­strophe make it impossible to return to, or to ‘regen­er­ate’, pre­vi­ous situations.

There is even the danger that regen­er­at­ive tour­ism sup­ports the illu­sion that some loc­al action is enough to turn back the clock. Approaches like ‘pos­it­ive sus­tain­ab­il­ity’ lead­ing to ‘mean­ing­ful tour­ism’ try to widen the hori­zon to a more hol­ist­ic view.

‘Sustainability is the bare minimum one should expect’

Tim Russell, Group Marketing Manager, Khiri Travel

For me, the answer is simple. Sus­tain­able tour­ism means tour­ists not hav­ing a neg­at­ive impact on the des­tin­a­tions they vis­it i.e. leav­ing next to no foot­print, not hav­ing an effect on loc­al pri­cing (espe­cially as regards prop­erty), behav­ing well and respect­ing loc­al cus­toms, and not mak­ing loc­al people change their life­styles to adapt to tourism. Sus­tain­ab­il­ity is the bare min­im­um one should expect.

Regen­er­at­ive tour­ism goes a step fur­ther and encour­ages tour­ists to have a pos­it­ive impact on the places they visit. This might mean some­thing as simple as boost­ing loc­al eco­nom­ies by spend­ing money in loc­al busi­nesses, but it may also involve tour­ists get­ting involved in char­ity or cleanup pro­jects, volun­teer­ing their time at schools or sim­il­ar organ­isa­tions, or delib­er­ately vis­it­ing sec­ond­ary des­tin­a­tions that usu­ally miss out on tour­ism dollars. Post-trip, it could also include act­ing as an evan­gel­ist for that des­tin­a­tion via social media or WOMO (word of mouth).

For travel busi­nesses like Khiri Travel, regen­er­at­ive tour­ism is the logic­al pro­gres­sion of our sus­tain­ab­il­ity eth­ic, par­tic­u­larly post-COV­ID when even our most pop­u­lar des­tin­a­tions are feel­ing the squeeze.

‘Where we work, there is no great difference’

Greg Bakunzi, Founder, Red Rocks Initiative for Sustainable Development & Red Rocks Rwanda

In a real sense, where we work, there is no great dif­fer­ence between ‘regen­er­at­ive tour­ism’ and ‘sus­tain­able tourism’. Our ‘regen­er­at­ive tour­ism’ approaches must con­sider envir­on­ment­al, social, and eco­nom­ic factors and deliv­er on all those expect­a­tions; the triple bot­tom line of ‘sus­tain­able tourism’.

Red Rocks is based in the north­ern province of Rwanda, the food bas­ket of our coun­try. We usu­ally engage tour­ists through nature con­ser­va­tion and com­munity devel­op­ment. Our guests wit­ness our regen­er­at­ive work through mul­tiple tours. One such tour involves our guests in nature con­ser­va­tion; plant­ing trees that con­trib­ute to refor­est­a­tion ini­ti­at­ives around Vol­ca­noes Nation­al Park, and learn­ing more about the forest’s role in the eco­sys­tem, includ­ing the medi­cin­al plants that grow in the forest. This ‘regen­er­at­ive tour­ism’ example serves two pur­poses: Restor­ing a forest eco­sys­tem and edu­cat­ing people about its benefits.

We also offer com­munity-based tour­ism exper­i­ences spe­cific­ally designed to bene­fit loc­al people in our des­tin­a­tion, while giv­ing trav­el­lers a genu­ine insight into rur­al liv­ing in Musanze. Our joint pro­ject between tour oper­at­ors gives com­munit­ies liv­ing near Vol­ca­noes Nation­al Park oppor­tun­it­ies to earn sup­ple­ment­ary incomes that help them ‘regen­er­ate’ as places where real people live, work, and grow.

All negatives ‘finally solved and overcome’

Saverio Francesco Bertolucci, Administrative Assistant, Alcambarcelona, Spain

Being a post­gradu­ate mas­ter in sus­tain­able tour­ism devel­op­ment, I can eas­ily describe both ‘sus­tain­able tour­ism’ and ‘regen­er­at­ive tourism’. Sus­tain­able tour­ism has a very broad mean­ing while regen­er­at­ive tour­ism is very clear in its pur­pose and goals.

Sus­tain­ab­il­ity is divided in a tri­an­gu­lar form that includes envir­on­ment­al, soci­et­al and eco­nom­ic spheres. Regen­er­at­ive tour­ism is a spe­cif­ic strategy mainly adop­ted by des­tin­a­tions that heav­ily rely on the hos­pit­al­ity industry and recently suffered from mass tourism. In this con­text, regen­er­at­ing tour­ism entails man­aging and con­trolling tour­ism flows and tour­ism profits in a way that bene­fits all stake­hold­ers involved in or influ­enced by the industry. In a suc­cess­ful scen­ario, all neg­at­ive out­comes are finally solved and overcome.

Sus­tain­able tour­ism, instead, is a trend­ing strategy without pure mean­ing since its value and pur­pose is wide depend­ing on which sphere an indi­vidu­al wants to consider. In oth­er words, it is cur­rently dif­fi­cult to talk about sus­tain­able tour­ism without spe­cify­ing if we are dis­cuss­ing social, envir­on­ment­al, or eco­nom­ic terms.

‘We’re obliged to do a lot more than just maintain what we have’

K Michael Haywood, Professor Emeritus, University of Guelph, Canada

I view ‘regen­er­a­tion’ as thought and action that pro­gresses bey­ond continuity. More crit­ic­ally, I sense that the cur­rent use of the term rep­res­ents a sort of rebuke against an inad­equate appre­ci­ation for and response to ‘sus­tain­ab­il­ity’ and its four pil­lars; not­ably the insuf­fi­cient atten­tion giv­en to the inter­con­nectiv­ity between human and envir­on­ment­al well-being.

Giv­en the crises that now befall us, we’ve become more aware that sus­tain­ab­il­ity works best when what cur­rently exists is repair­able. That real­ity, how­ever, is quickly becom­ing bygone. So we’re obliged to do a lot more than just main­tain what we have. Unfor­tu­nately, it’s doubt­ful wheth­er oper­at­ors or vis­it­ors appre­ci­ate this, or know how to act or behave in what could be called ‘regen­er­at­ive’ ways.

After all, many com­pan­ies and com­munit­ies say they have been doing their best to reduce the harm tour­ist­ic activ­it­ies cause, but their actions have ten­ded to be lim­ited and some­times illusory. ‘Gre­en­wash­ing ’ has been well doc­u­mented, but in its cri­ti­cism of ESG activ­it­ies, what The Eco­nom­ist got wrong is enlight­en­ing and requires redress.

One would only hope, there­fore, that what some call ‘regen­er­at­ive tour­ism’ — tour­ism that leaves a place bet­ter than it was before — would be more forth­com­ing and rather less uto­pi­an and mor­al­ist­ic in tone. While it’s more than an eco­nom­ic mod­el, a more frugal eco­nomy is needed; one that des­per­ately calls for regen­er­at­ive innov­a­tion that has to be astute and co-evol­u­tion­ary; socially, cul­tur­ally, envir­on­ment­ally, and economically. As any thesaur­us will reveal, syn­onyms for ‘regen­er­at­ive’ go bey­ond that which is res­tor­at­ive and resi­li­ent to include that which is devel­op­ment­al, cor­rect­ive, enabling, nur­tur­ing, edi­fy­ing, refin­ing, beau­ti­fy­ing, and liberalising.

Tour­ism will aston­ish when, in today’s par­lance, its par­ti­cipants become ‘woke’ to ‘com­munity­ship’; a com­munity­ship that embraces these notions, and becomes ingeni­ous in its regen­er­at­ive accom­plish­ments.

Is ‘sustainability’ still viable?

Phoebe Everingham, Researcher, University of Newcastle, Australia

In the face of eco­lo­gic­al col­lapse due to human-induced cli­mate change, the term sus­tain­ab­il­ity is becom­ing increas­ingly redundant. Cap­it­al­ist devel­op­ment has been so det­ri­ment­al that what is left to be sus­tained of the ‘nat­ur­al envir­on­ment’ is no longer enough to reverse neg­at­ive impacts on nat­ur­al cycles.

Moreover sus­tain­able tour­ism has been co-opted by an agenda of sus­tain­ing cer­tain extract­ive forms of eco­nom­ic growth that priv­ilege wealth accu­mu­la­tion at the expense of the nat­ur­al envir­on­ment and the major­ity of humans. Too often in so-called ‘sus­tain­able’ mod­els, the main focus is on increas­ing tour­ist num­bers and revenue.

Mass con­sump­tion and mass tour­ism has per­petu­ated these det­ri­ment­al effects on the envir­on­ment, and we are now exceed­ing plan­et­ary limits. What we need now are forms of tour­ism that regen­er­ate the nat­ur­al envir­on­ment, and give more equit­able returns to a lar­ger group of stake­hold­ers; includ­ing the non-human world.

Tour­ism can play an import­ant role in driv­ing the shift towards a green eco­nomy, how­ever more invest­ment is needed in low-car­bon trans­port and resource efficiency. But more than this we need loc­al­ised, cir­cu­lar, and regen­er­at­ive mod­els that fore­ground con­nec­tions between envir­on­ment­al and social ecologies.

This involves sys­tem think­ing that pos­i­tions humans with­in a lar­ger web of life, and emphas­ises sup­port for vul­ner­able nat­ur­al and human communities. Social, eco­nom­ic, and bio­phys­ic­al impacts are interconnected. Tour­ism devel­op­ment should always be con­sidered as part of a big­ger sys­tem wherein plan­et­ary life takes priority.

It is clear that even after dec­ades of sus­tain­ab­il­ity talk in tour­ism that there is still a long way to go in terms of imple­ment­ing best-prac­tice models. What is needed now is more regen­er­at­ive think­ing and a clear com­mit­ment to future-proof­ing the world in the face of increas­ing cli­mate chaos.

In the urban context they are much the same

Sudipta K Sarkar, Senior Lecturer in Tourism, Anglia Ruskin University, UK

Fun­da­ment­ally, both ‘sus­tain­able tour­ism’ and ‘regen­er­at­ive tour­ism’ are buzz terms based on the prin­ciple of ‘feel­ing good’ or ‘doing good’. Some say ‘regen­er­at­ive tour­ism’ is about leav­ing a place bet­ter than it was before, while ‘sus­tain­able tour­ism’ is about pro­tect­ing, con­serving, and main­tain­ing what is left for future generations.

From an urb­an cul­tur­al point of view, regen­er­at­ive ini­ti­at­ives can repur­pose and reju­ven­ate (often aban­doned) sites which earli­er had a dif­fer­ent func­tion (e.g. indus­tri­al sites con­ver­ted into parks, recre­ation areas, enter­tain­ment zones, or edu­ca­tion campuses).

The aim here is to elev­ate the well-being, qual­ity of life, and exper­i­ences of the urb­an masses. Examples include former indus­tri­al build­ings along the Mer­sey River in Liv­er­pool, UK that have been con­ver­ted into state-of-the art museums. Anoth­er example is the Cheonggyecheon Stream in Seoul, South Korea which was covered by an elev­ated high­way for dec­ades start­ing in the 1970s, then revived in 2003 as a more ‘nat­ur­al’ or ‘green’ space for recre­ation­al activities.

Sus­tain­able tour­ism can be referred to as some­thing that uni­formly sus­tains the gen­er­a­tion of eco­nom­ic, eco­lo­gic­al, and cul­tur­al wealth and involves the par­ti­cip­a­tion of both mass and ‘niche’ vis­it­ors (depend­ing on the destination). Mass vis­it­a­tion to ‘nat­ur­al’ urb­an sites for thera­peut­ic, recre­ation­al, and social pur­poses ration­al­ises the pro­tec­tion and ‘regen­er­a­tion’ of the eco­lo­gic­al qual­ity of such sites as well as their ‘sus­tain­ab­il­ity’ in the con­text of city living.

Regard­less of buzzwords used and where tour­ism occurs, expect­ing the industry to do only good with no fal­lout is a fallacy. In the urb­an con­text, the val­id­a­tion of both catch­phrases is pos­sible if the urb­an masses embrace the ‘feel-good’ and par­ti­cip­ate in the ‘do-good’, while accept­ing that there will be (unavoid­able and unfore­see­able) negatives.

Taking responsibility leads to sustainable, regenerative outcomes

Susan Eardly, Founder, Serene Vacations, Sri Lanka

The COVID-19 pan­dem­ic offered the tour­ism industry the oppor­tun­ity to rethink and rebuild tourism. Respons­ible tour­ism actions by indi­vidu­als, busi­nesses, and des­tin­a­tions leads to a sus­tain­able tour­ism approach, which fol­lows an inclus­ive growth mod­el where the eco­nom­ic, social, and envir­on­ment­al factors are considered.

Involving loc­al com­munit­ies and sup­port­ing loc­al eco­nom­ies could be aspects of respons­ible tourism. Trav­el­lers are becom­ing more cau­tious about using resources sus­tain­ably. So tour com­pan­ies can rethink, and offer them more sus­tain­able and unique travel services.

Regen­er­at­ive tour­ism goes bey­ond sus­tain­able tour­ism and aims to restore the nat­ur­al world, which is import­ant to human health and wellbeing. Tour­ism organ­isa­tions can also offer mem­or­able, authen­t­ic, life-chan­ging exper­i­ences towards mit­ig­at­ing cli­mate impacts. Sim­il­arly, a col­lab­or­at­ive approach by all stake­hold­ers is import­ant to achiev­ing regen­er­at­ive tour­ism goals.

Old wine. New bottles

Melanie Kay Smith, Associate Professor / Programme Leader, Budapest Metropolitan University, Hungary

We have a tend­ency in tour­ism aca­demia and research to pour old wine into new bottles; in oth­er words, to coin new phrases for old phenomena! A good example of this is ‘over­tour­ism’, a term we used in the imme­di­ate pre-COV­ID years to describe over­crowding and mis­man­age­ment of tour­ism in destinations. Over­tour­ism stud­ies forced us to reas­sess our approaches to des­tin­a­tion man­age­ment, which needed to be even more focused on prin­ciples of sustainability.

Sus­tain­ab­il­ity was an evolving concept which was ori­gin­ally based on envir­on­ment­al impacts (1990s) but was expan­ded to include social and eco­nom­ic elements. Sus­tain­able tour­ism, there­fore, benefited com­munit­ies socially and eco­nom­ic­ally while still pro­tect­ing ecosystems. Over­tour­ism was pre­dom­in­antly based on social impacts of tour­ism on res­id­ents, accord­ing to some sys­tem­at­ic reviews.

COVID gave the envir­on­ment a rest from tourism. The post-COV­ID era has forced us to pri­or­it­ise eco­nom­ic issues (e.g. restart­ing busi­nesses and over­com­ing labour shortages). It is now tempt­ing to assume that post-COV­ID tour­ism devel­op­ment and strategies will rad­ic­ally change the face of tour­ism rather than go back to ‘busi­ness as usual’. Many of these debates are tak­ing place in the emer­ging area of so-called ‘regen­er­at­ive tour­ism’, which has been described as ‘mak­ing things bet­ter’; a more sus­tain­able, more resi­li­ent tourism.

The United Nations advoc­ates approaches that are more col­lab­or­at­ive, involving loc­al com­munit­ies, with an emphas­is on envir­on­ment­al stewardship. More scru­tiny should be giv­en to the tour­ism value chain and cir­cu­lar eco­nom­ies than in pre­vi­ous mod­els of sustainability.

Des­tin­a­tions should not be so depend­ent on tour­ism in order to be resilient. How­ever, human nature does not eas­ily change, and such mod­els rely on the sup­port of gov­ern­ments and the sac­ri­fice and com­prom­ise of consumers. For this, tour­ism may not be the main or the only start­ing point!

‘To regenerate is to heal’

Debbie Clarke, Director of Regenerative Development, GOOD Travel (no relation), New Zealand

For some­thing to be regen­er­at­ive, it needs to be alive, inter­con­nec­ted, and embed­ded in lar­ger nes­ted liv­ing sys­tems. To regen­er­ate is to heal, to bring more vital­ity and life into existence.

For tour­ism to con­trib­ute to regen­er­a­tion, in des­tin­a­tion and industry prac­tice, we need to step back and ask the big­ger ques­tion about tourism’s pur­pose at this crit­ic­al time on our planet: “How can tour­ism con­trib­ute to heal­ing, and bring more vital­ity and life into existence?” This is a fun­da­ment­al shift in thinking.

As we cul­tiv­ate a dif­fer­ent mind­set, we can begin to devel­op a dif­fer­ent world­view that under­stands every­one (human and more-than-human) is inter­con­nec­ted in inter­de­pend­ent liv­ing systems. The ongo­ing prac­tice of devel­op­ing this mind­set takes us well bey­ond the still-needed actions of sustainability. This prac­tice invites us to explore ques­tions rel­at­ive to who we are in our place, in col­lab­or­a­tion with oth­ers, and listen deeply for what emerges.

These ques­tions might include:

• What is the poten­tial of our place? Who does it want to become?
• What are the sys­tems tour­ism is part of, and relies on, that we can help trans­form to bring about more life and vital­ity here?
• What cap­ab­il­it­ies do these sys­tems need to devel­op to be adapt­ive, respons­ive, more resi­li­ent, and thriv­ing in the future? What is tourism’s role in help­ing to devel­op those capabilities?
• Where can we devel­op recip­roc­ally bene­fi­cial rela­tion­ships in our loc­al sys­tems, across sec­tors, to strengthen us all?
• If ‘regen­er­a­tion’ is to become more alive, what makes me feel alive?
• Am I encour­aging life to thrive? What does that mean in this unique place? What do I uniquely have to offer? What’s my role and con­tri­bu­tion to the heal­ing of my place?
• And what cap­ab­il­it­ies do I need to devel­op to ful­fill this role?

This prac­tice is a lifelong journey.

Regenerative approaches add new energy

Jonathon Day, Associate Professor | Graduate Program Director, White Lodging — J.W. Marriott, Jr. School of Hospitality and Tourism Management

Regen­er­at­ive approaches start with the imper­at­ive of mak­ing things better. While the defin­i­tion of sus­tain­ab­il­ity and sus­tain­able tour­ism fully incor­por­ates this type of approach, in prac­tice, sus­tain­ab­il­ity often feels like it is a set of prac­tices designed for “not bad” rather than “bet­ter”. This sen­ti­ment extends far bey­ond tourism.

Elk­ing­ton, the ori­gin­at­or of the term “Triple Bot­tom Line” recog­nises that regen­er­at­ive approaches, while built on the found­a­tions of sus­tain­ab­il­ity, have added new energy to achiev­ing import­ant goals. While I am sure there are dif­fer­ences between regen­er­at­ive tour­ism and sus­tain­able tour­ism (that aca­dem­ics like me will be writ­ing about for years to come), I am excited by the enthu­si­asm around regen­er­at­ive approaches and their con­tri­bu­tions to a bet­ter tour­ism system.

‘What kind of tourism do we need post pandemic?’

Edwin Magio, Teaching & Research Assistant, Moi University, Kenya; Commonwealth Scholar, Leeds Beckett University, UK

Sus­tain­able tour­ism is about mak­ing sure we don’t spoil the places we vis­it and that they remain avail­able for future gen­er­a­tions to enjoy. Regen­er­at­ive tour­ism, on the oth­er hand, is about improv­ing a place and mak­ing it bet­ter than we found it.

What kind of tour­ism do we need post pandemic?

The pan­dem­ic jeop­ard­ised the world’s most pop­u­lar tour­ist des­tin­a­tions; envir­on­ment­ally, cul­tur­ally, socially, and financially. Giv­en that many des­tin­a­tions have been affected and need some form of repair or solu­tions, it is vital not only to main­tain the des­tin­a­tions but to improve (regen­er­ate) them.

Regen­er­at­ive tour­ism has the poten­tial to off­set the dam­age that tour­ism-depend­ent des­tin­a­tion com­munit­ies have suffered dur­ing the pandemic. Moreover, it is essen­tial to help des­tin­a­tions recov­er from the pro­found impacts of COVID-19 and the neg­at­ive effects of the industry, such as cli­mate change, envir­on­ment­al degrad­a­tion, and biod­iversity loss. This will help these des­tin­a­tions remain rel­ev­ant and competitive. Sus­tain­able tour­ism alone will not allow a neg­at­ively-impacted des­tin­a­tion to improve, let alone get closer to the state it was in before the neg­at­ive changes.

There­fore, if we are to suc­ceed in recov­er­ing from COVID-19, we need:

1. to make sure that we don’t dam­age des­tin­a­tions, and

2. to improve des­tin­a­tions and make them bet­ter than they were before.

This article was originally published on Good Tourism