Paying it forward and back: Regenerative tourism as part of place

Abstract

The notion of regenerative tourism has gained significant attention in recent years, as have other regenerative notions such as regenerative agriculture, regenerative design, and regenerative development. It is suggested that these regenerative notions have developed in response to concerns around the effectiveness of the implementation of the sustainability paradigm. However, regenerative tourism as a potential complementary or alternative paradigm currently lacks definition and therefore clarity around what it encompasses. Without clarity, and a shared sense of what regenerative tourism could look like within the context of a place, it could risk becoming over-claimed and difficult to measure and discern. We address these issues in two ways, which comprise the distinct sections of this report.