Sustainable tourism and regenerative tourism

Scroll down for posts that have been tagged with “sus­tain­able tour­ism and regen­er­at­ive tourism”.

Sus­tain­able tour­ism “takes full account of its cur­rent and future eco­nom­ic, social and envir­on­ment­al impacts, address­ing the needs of vis­it­ors, the industry, the envir­on­ment and host com­munit­ies”, accord­ing to the United Nations World Tour­ism Organ­iz­a­tion (UNWTO)Regen­er­at­ive tour­ism chal­lenges and/or extends the concept of sus­tain­able tourism.

The con­cepts of sus­tain­able tour­ism and regen­er­at­ive tour­ism have emerged as a response to the neg­at­ive impacts that tour­ism can have on the envir­on­ment, eco­nomy, and society.

The 1987 Report of the World Com­mis­sion on Envir­on­ment and Devel­op­ment, also known as the Brundtland Report, defined sus­tain­able devel­op­ment as “devel­op­ment that meets the needs of the present without com­prom­ising the abil­ity of future gen­er­a­tions to meet their own needs.”

This idea was later applied to tour­ism. The concept of sus­tain­able tour­ism was born to ensure that tour­ism activ­it­ies are car­ried out in a way that does not deplete nat­ur­al resources or harm loc­al communities.

Regen­er­at­ive tour­ism is a more recent devel­op­ment. It builds upon the prin­ciples of sus­tain­able tour­ism, but goes fur­ther by striv­ing to cre­ate pos­it­ive impact on the envir­on­ment, eco­nomy, and society.

Accord­ing to the book Regen­er­at­ive Tour­ism: Prin­ciples, prac­tices and implic­a­tions by Paul Peeters and Peter Neuwirth, the term ‘regen­er­at­ive tour­ism’ was first intro­duced in 2012. The authors define regen­er­at­ive tour­ism as a “hol­ist­ic approach to tour­ism devel­op­ment that seeks to cre­ate a pos­it­ive impact on the envir­on­ment, eco­nomy and soci­ety, and to regen­er­ate the des­tin­a­tions in which it operates”.

The United Nations World Tour­ism Organ­iz­a­tion (UNWTO) has played a key role in pro­mot­ing sus­tain­able tour­ism through the devel­op­ment of guidelines, policies, and best prac­tices, such as the UNWTO Glob­al Code of Eth­ics for Tour­ism (1999) and the UN Sus­tain­able Devel­op­ment Goals (2015)

It’s import­ant to note that these ref­er­ences are not exhaust­ive, as there are many oth­er sources of inform­a­tion on sus­tain­able tour­ism and regen­er­at­ive tour­ism, such as on The “Good Tour­ism” Blog.

At the end of a con­ver­sa­tion in August 2020 about the dif­fer­ences between sus­tain­able tour­ism and regen­er­at­ive tour­ism ― when asked to give the lift (elev­at­or) defin­i­tion of regen­er­at­ive tour­ism ― “Good Tour­ism” Friend Susanne Beck­on said: “Give back more than you take.”

At an eco­tour­ism con­fer­ence in Decem­ber 2020, Anna Pol­lock said there is a jour­ney we must all embark upon if the travel & tour­ism industry is to move from degen­er­at­ive busi­ness-as-usu­al to regen­er­at­ive flour­ish­ing and thriv­ing. The route, she reck­ons, is via notions of “green”, “sus­tain­able”, and “res­tor­at­ive” in that order.

Since August 2020 “GT” has used the same tag for both sus­tain­able tour­ism and regen­er­at­ive tour­ism. Tags are inform­al. The “Good Tour­ism” Blog tries not to get bogged down with ter­min­o­logy and defin­i­tions so you may dis­agree with tags applied (or not applied) to a post. Feel free to com­ment on the post. “GT” encour­ages good-faith debate and discussion.

Two tourism democratisation challenges to consider as we plan for recovery

October 6, 2020

Two tourism democratisation challenges to consider as we plan for recovery

Sus­tain­able tour­ism con­sult­ant Tim O’Donoghue leads the col­lab­or­at­ive efforts of Teton County, Wyom­ing, USA to become a sus­tain­able des­tin­a­tion. In this “Good Tour­ism” Insight, Mr O’Donoghue iden­ti­fies two core chal­lenges to achiev­ing com­munity con­sensus around tour­ism devel­op­ment plan­ning and des­tin­a­tion man­age­ment. Most com­munit­ies that are travel des­tin­a­tions have seen their tour­ism eco­nom­ies grow organ­ic­ally and […]

Read More Two tourism democratisation challenges to consider as we plan for recovery

Anurak Lodge in Thailand wins PATA Grand Award for sustainability


Anurak Community Lodge staff

Anurak Com­munity Lodge’s green cre­den­tials secure the ‘best of the best’ award for oper­at­or YAANA Ven­tures. YAANA Ven­tures, the oper­at­or of Anurak Com­munity Lodge at Khao Sok Nation­al Park in south­ern Thai­l­and, has been awar­ded the 2020 Pacific Asia Travel Asso­ci­ation (PATA) Grand Award in the Sus­tain­ab­il­ity cat­egory. The win­ners were announced dur­ing the online PATA Gold […]

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As we build back better, is sustainable tourism enough to regenerate nature?

September 8, 2020

Elephants and the community (c. Mahouts Elephant Foundation)

Sus­tain­able tour­ism is a com­plex puzzle with lots of mov­ing parts. Toss in regen­er­at­ive prin­ciples and it becomes even more con­found­ing. For­tu­nately there are those who think deeply about import­ant parts of the puzzle, such as anim­al wel­fare con­sult­ant Daniel Turn­er of ANIMONDIAL. In this “Good Tour­ism” Insight, Mr Turn­er shares how our industry might […]

Read More As we build back better, is sustainable tourism enough to regenerate nature?

Regenerative tourism vs sustainable tourism: What’s the difference?

and August 4, 2020
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An unfurling silver fern frond, New Zealand. By Jon Radoff (CC BY 2.5) via Wikimedia. https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1380624 The koru (Māori for '"loop or coil"') symbolises "new life, growth, strength and peace"; "conveys the idea of perpetual movement" while the inner coil "suggests returning to the point of origin".

For this “GT” Insight, Susanne Beck­en and Dav­id Gill­banks cor­res­pond to explore some of the sim­il­ar­it­ies and dif­fer­ences between the new buzz phrase “regen­er­at­ive tour­ism” and the old buzz term “sus­tain­able tour­ism”. DG: In a recent piece for News­room you wrote: “The very basic under­pin­ning of regen­er­at­ive tour­ism is that it is under­stood to occur […]

Read More Regenerative tourism vs sustainable tourism: What’s the difference?

Pivots to make a difference: What ITA is doing to educate, inspire, satiate

July 10, 2020

As we navigate our way through a tunnel of trouble, how can we pivot and position ourselves with grace and with style to make a difference at the other end? Image (c) Kelley Louise.

A travel entre­pren­eur pas­sion­ate about storytelling and social good, Kel­ley Louise is the exec­ut­ive dir­ect­or and founder of Impact Travel Alli­ance, a com­munity for eco- and socially-con­­s­cious trav­el­lers. In this “Good Tour­ism” Insight, Kel­ley tells us how the not-for-profit is mak­ing the best of chal­len­ging times to edu­cate trav­el­lers. Thanks to “GT” Insight Part­ner Second […]

Read More Pivots to make a difference: What ITA is doing to educate, inspire, satiate

How to change an iconic travel & tourism experience … for good

June 24, 2020

From the roadside. Mount Sefton, Mt Cook National Park, New Zealand. Image by Bernard Spragg (CC0) via Picryl. https://picryl.com/media/mount-sefton-mt-cook-np-nz-68cc04

Mak­ing things bet­ter rarely neces­sit­ates tear­ing everything down and start­ing again. Josie Major of GOOD Travel (no rela­tion) describes how research and a little ima­gin­a­tion can turn a quint­es­sen­tial New Zea­l­and travel exper­i­ence — the road trip — into some­thing poten­tially much bet­ter for every­one. Thanks to “Good Tour­ism” Insight Part­ner Second Look World­wide for invit­ing Josie to con­trib­ute this “GT” […]

Read More How to change an iconic travel & tourism experience … for good