Over the last few years in the Responsible Tourism Awards, we have seen applicants, many of them winners, who have talked in their applications about regeneration. They have talked about their agricultural practices, growing the food they feed their guests, and/or their rewilding of land. When a lodge abandons its manicured lawns and plants indigenous trees, shrubs, and flowers, the local insects, birds, and animals return and thrive. Rewilding restores and regenerates biodiversity.
This year, for the first time, there is a Regenerative Tourism category in the Global Responsible Tourism Awards. Consider applying or encourage others to.
Regenerative tourism is, in my view, an exemplary example of Responsible Tourism; it is very difficult to achieve. It is arguably the highest form of Responsible Tourism. I have wanted, for a few years, to introduce a regenerative tourism category into our Responsible Tourism Awards, which have been running since 2004. Every year we discover outstanding examples of businesses and destinations where change makers have stepped up, taken responsibility, and achieved change across the environmental, social, and economic pillars of the sustainability agenda.
Over the last twelve months, I have become concerned about the increasing use of regenerative travel and tourism in marketing as businesses and destinations use the concept to differentiate themselves from their competitors. Whilst Responsible Tourism is well-established and growing, Regenerative Tourism is an increasingly widely used term:
| 4 October 2025 | Google Hits | Google Scholar |
| Responsible Tourism Examples | 92,400,000 | 1,510,000 |
| Regenerative Tourism Examples | 3,290,000 | 45,100 |
| Regenerative Travel Examples | 1,110,000 | 15,900 |
In an article in Forbes magazine in April 2024, Amanda Ho, co-founder of the travel platform aptly named Regenerative Travel, defines it in its most simplistic form:
“It’s a type of travel that is an act of restoring, replenishing, and renewing the environment and community. It’s a reciprocity of how the destination and hotel provider really look to actually contribute to a positive impact. It’s the restoration of the bond that we have with communities and nature.”
Regenerative travel moves beyond sustainability: “By actively seeking to restore and regenerate the environment, cultures, and communities impacted by tourism, regenerative travel aims to leave a destination better than it was found, promoting biodiversity, supporting local economies, and fostering cultural exchange and understanding.”
The Cambridge dictionary gives two examples of the use of the word regeneration:
- Economic regeneration “the act of improving a place or system, especially by making it more active or successful”.
- Biological, medical, agricultural “the act of something growing or being grown again.”
Academics and practitioners writing about Regenerative Tourism share much of this thinking, as I demonstrated in a review of the relationship between Responsible Tourism and Regenerative Travel published last year. However, no firm definition of regenerative tourism has yet emerged in the industry or in academia, and as Hussain & Haley have pointed out, “there is a high risk of ‘green washing’ and inappropriate adaptation of a regenerative model.”
The 2026 ICRT Responsible Tourism Awards include a regenerative tourism category for the first time. We recognise that regenerative tourism is the most ambitious form of Responsible Tourism, but that it is plagued by greenwashing. We therefore seek to support the idea and those who are achieving it by demonstrating what is required to justify the use of the Regenerative Tourism label.
In 2026, we are looking for destinations and businesses:
- Where tourism is making a significant contribution to economic regeneration and to the livelihoods of the local community.
- Drawing on its roots in biology, medicine, and agriculture, the ambition is transformational. “Regenerative thinking dares us to imagine systems that actively create life, resilience, and beauty — for people, places, and the planet. It’s not the end goal. It’s a design principle. A mindset. A new way of belonging.”
This includes, but is not limited to, the closure of marine and terrestrial areas to tourists to facilitate regeneration, as well as tourism businesses and destinations replanting and reintroducing native species.
