Last year, we graduated from the exceptional the Regenerative Leadership Program hosted by Laura Storm, and this year we will be stepping into yet another year-long professional journey with Regenerators. Alongside this, we have been studying the regenerative and transformational tourism field since around 2020 through our work at The Transformational Travel Council. Together, these experiences continue to shape how we see ourselves and our work.
We are just students. Not experts. But we have been learning from experts, pioneers, and real heros and heroines in the field – and applying it to our work at empowered.travel.
This blog post is written for empowered.travel – in small letters, intentionally – because regeneration itself invites humility, curiosity, and courage. At empowered.travel, we believe tourism can be a force for healing, reconnection, and shared responsibility, when it is rooted in place, care, and collective intelligence. It asks us to listen, to learn, and to acknowledge that none of us has all the answers. What we do have is a growing body of wisdom, practice, and lived experience from people who have been walking this path long before regenerative tourism became a widely spoken phrase.
As an unquestionable matter expert and founder at Conscious Travel, Anna Pollock reminds us: “Regeneration is not a trend, but the whole new way of thinking and doing.” That sentence alone challenges almost everything tourism has been optimized for over the past decades.
This post accompanies ongoing research exploring systemic barriers and enablers for advancing regenerative tourism. empowered.travel’s founder was invited to provide our thoughts on the matter. The insights gathered will contribute to a public-facing systems map and a peer-reviewed academic article which will be published this year. But more importantly, this is an invitation: to professionals in tourism, and to people navigating transitions through solo travel, to pause and ask why regenerative tourism is not just relevant – but vital for the future of life on Earth.
First thing: Do we even know what regeneration is?
When we hear the term regenerative tourism, many questions arise. Is it just a more ambitious variation of sustainability? A new sexy term for marketing decks? Or perhaps a few quick fixes layered on top of broken systems?
These questions matter, because the context we are operating in is nothing short of alarming. As per the above ITB Berlin keynote video provided by subject matter expert, Anna Pollock;
- Around 40% of the world’s land is degraded.
- Humanity currently needs 1.7 planets to sustain its resource consumption – a number projected to rise toward three planets by 2050 if nothing changes.
- According to WWF, 75% of species have gone extinct in the last 10–15 years.
We are living in what many thinkers describe as a polycrisis or metacrisis – a convergence of ecological, social, economic, cultural, and spiritual crises. This metacrisis does not call for optimization. It calls for metamorphosis.
Metamorphosis implies a paradigm shift: a fundamental change in the lens through which we see the world and the systems we design.
Regeneration is a verb, not a destination
Regenerative tourism is not a checklist, a certification, or a finish line. Regeneration, similarly to life purpose, is a process and a way of thinking. It is a verb.
At its core, regeneration is about healing fragmentation. It is a process of re-membering – bringing back together what has been separated. It is about developing the innate capacity of systems to self-organize, thrive, and evolve.
Rather than focusing on quantity, efficiency, or yield, regenerative tourism prioritizes:
- Quality
- Well-being
- Capacity
- Resilience
- Care
- Meaningful relationships & equal exchange
- Stewardship
It goes to the root of problems, while simultaneously focusing on building potential. This is why regenerative tourism represents a whole paradigm shift, not an upgrade to sustainability.
Between sustainability and regeneration, there are many steps. Many destinations are somewhere along this continuum – some aspiring to go further, some claiming they have already arrived.
Sustainability vs Regenerative Tourism (source: Anna Pollock)
Sustainability (stages of maturity):
- Doing less harm
- Mitigating harm
- Doing more good, repairing, giving back
Regenerative tourism (progression):
- Restoring, replenishing, building resilience
- Partnering with nature and building capacities
- Acting as nature, co-creating a just and regenerative future
Tourism as part of a much bigger system
Tourism is not the system. It is a contributor – an important one, but still only a part of a much broader living system that includes:
- Local ecosystems and resources
- Food systems
- Waste and water management
- Housing and infrastructure
- Local industries and livelihoods
- Cultural and social fabrics
This raises critical questions for regenerative tourism:
- Who is the regenerative tourist?
- Will they go to Mallorca in peak season?
- Where will they stay, and who owns that place?
- What tours or attractions will they choose – and why?
- How can travel professionals and suppliers become stewards of the world, instead of transaction makers?
Regenerative tourism is about designing for positive emergence, not controlling outcomes. We set conditions. We bring stakeholders together. We build potential. We ask everyone involved good questions. We trust life to respond. We sense and respond to an unavoidable changes in the process.
As Laura Storm beautifully puts it: “Regenerative tourism is about the essence of the place. Creating meaningful exchange conditions between stewards and visitors.”
From Otto Scharmer, we learn that one of the reasons systems fail repeatedly is because we try to build movements without first asking what the parts involved truly want.
Consider Mallorca, Kyoto, Venice, Ubud, or Amsterdam. Do locals even want tourism? If so, on what terms? What is the essence of their place? Who defines success? Is tourism managed by local communities – or by DMOs driven by profit, bed counts, and overnight stays?
Systemic barriers to regenerative tourism
Gregory Bateson warned us: “The major problems in the world are the result of the difference between how nature works and the way people think.”
Fritjof Capra adds that the root cause is a crisis in perception – the way we see and understand the world.
Some of the dominant barriers preventing regenerative tourism include:
- Seeing tourism as a machine, rather than a living, interconnected system.
- Hierarchical, top-down control, which does not exist in nature.
- Standardization and homogeneity.
- Overly individualistic cultures driven by greed and entitlement.
- Constant summer: no rest, no wintering, no recovery.
- Chronic stress and high-speed operations.
- Defining success as exponential growth and competition.
- Scarcity mindsets and extraction.
- Globalized, one-size-fits-all solutions.
- Crossing planetary boundaries related to pollution, climate, and biodiversity.
These patterns trace back to the Scientific Revolution, when nature was reframed as a mechanistic system rather than a living entity. Regenerative tourism asks us to unlearn that worldview.
Enablers for regenerative tourism
Albert Einstein famously said: “No problem can be solved with the same consciousness that created it.”
Regenerative tourism requires a shift in consciousness, values, and behaviors. Key enablers include:
- Systems thinking and collective intelligence
- Enabling systems rather than controlling ones
- Space for difficult conversations and constructive conflict
- Honoring natural cycles and seasons, especially wintering
- Redefining success as resilience, vibrancy, and flourishing
- Designing from potential, not from problems
- Inspiring and capacity-building rather than blaming
- Tending to the soil: education, community, teams, allowing for self-management
- Inclusion, diversity, and equity
- Accepting death and letting go of what no longer serves
- Reframing visitors as contributors and guests
- Learning from Indigenous nations, who steward 80% of global biodiversity
- Community-owned, culturally grounded tourism products
- Regenerative development training at destination level
- Abundance mindset and collaboration
Mechanistic tourism vs living systems tourism
Mechanistic tourism is global, extractive, standardized, price-driven, and top-down. It is vulnerable.
Living systems tourism is localized, generative, place-shaped, value-driven, participatory, and resilient. This is the heart of regenerative tourism.
Examples of regenerative tourism in practice
Around the world, destinations are experimenting with regenerative tourism in deeply contextual ways.
- Camano & Whidbey Islands (USA): destination stewardship, low-impact nature tourism, regenerative storytelling.
- Visit Issaquah (USA): protecting watersheds, wildlife education, community collaboration.
- Willamette Valley (USA): regenerative roadmaps, restoration tourism, agritourism coordination.
- New Zealand: national shift toward regenerative tourism guided by tiaki, manaakitanga, and Māori knowledge, with Anna Pollock’s influence.
- Blue Mountains (Australia): ecological restoration, Aboriginal-led tourism, slow travel.
- Rewilding Chile & Argentina: large-scale ecosystem restoration funded by regenerative tourism.
- Visit Flanders (Belgium): moving from volume growth to destination flourishing.
Each of these examples demonstrates that regenerative tourism cannot be copied and pasted. It must be rooted in place.
Moving forward
Second thing: we must rethink and redesign how we live on this planet. Not through quick fixes, but systemic change.
Third thing: the definition of success in tourism must become a vibrant, resilient, flourishing future.
Fourth thing: the visitor’s role must shift from extractor to humble contributor.
Fifth thing: we cannot solve these challenges with the same tools that caused them.
Sixth thing: when we focus on potential rather than problems, collective intelligence emerges.
Regenerative tourism invites us to heal the story of separation, to honor our ancestors, to move from control to self-management, and to design for life.
This is not easy work. But it is necessary work. And it is deeply hopeful. Regenerative tourism is not about saving tourism. It is about remembering how to belong to life again.
A gentle invitation
At empowered.travel, we do not believe there is a single right way to practice regenerative tourism. Every place is different. Every journey begins from a different starting point.
If you are a destination, tourism professional, entrepreneur, or traveler in transition, and you feel called to explore what regeneration could mean in your context, we invite you into conversation. We offer space for listening, sense-making, and systems thinking — helping you identify potential, clarify purpose, and take your first (or next) steps toward a regenerative tourism journey that is grounded, place-based, and meaningful. Our DIY sabbatical guidebook includes a number of practical tools, inspirations, and educational materials that will help every mindful traveler not only get the most out of their solo trip, but also become a better stewards of the places we care for and call home.
If this resonates, schedule a call with us to explore how you can begin your regenerative journey — personally, professionally, or as a destination. Because regeneration starts with relationship. And every meaningful journey begins with a conversation.
If you are looking for places to begin learning more about the regenerative approach, we warmly recommend exploring the work and resources of Anna Pollock, Michelle Holliday, Laura Storm, and Daniel Christian Wahl. Their writings, talks, courses and practical frameworks offer deep insight into regenerative thinking, living systems, and place-based transformation, and serve as inspiring entry points for anyone curious about regenerative tourism and regenerative development more broadly.
