Evolving tourism for the better

Context: We desperately need new approaches, especially in tourism, to safe this planet

Ambiguity seems to have arrived in almost all aspects of everyday (business) life nowadays. There are hardly any simple answers or solutions to the challenges and questions that confront us today in our economic activity and behaviour.

Tourism, travelling to foreign places, is no exception. No matter from which angle you look at it, you can recognise both the positive and negative effects of travel: relaxation, cultural enrichment and economic prosperity on the one hand, environmentally and climate-damaging externalities, cultural exploitation and increased social inequality on the other. As Hans Magnus Enzensberger wrote: "The tourist destroys what he seeks by finding it".

So today we are facing immense challenges. Although many of the sustainability measures taken are important, they do not contribute sufficiently to overcoming the current environmental problems of our planet. We must therefore ask ourselves how we can promote tourism that does more for the good of all. A tourism that heals us and our planet and embraces all living things.

Realisation: Tourism is sawing at the branch it is sitting on. We need new approaches.

Regenerative tourism could be one such new approach.

In this context, the regenerative tourism approach has gained considerable attention in recent years - particularly in academic literature and overseas. This approach endeavours to achieve long-term positive impact on nature, society, culture and the economy of a place through tourism.

There is now quite a lot of literature on regenerative tourism and at the same time, to my knowledge, little best-practice examples and exchange in Europe and Switzerland. The approach is also quite demanding because it is based on the principles of systemic thinking and action. And because it requires people to fundamentally change their thought patterns and perspectives and to adopt a deep sense of interdependence with all life on this planet. We have tried to concretise this approach in a basic paper. This can be obtained from our homepage.

Realisation: Regenerative tourism is a promising but not yet enough explored approach.

The Regenerative Tourism Initiative fills gaps

We come to the conclusion that the valuable topic of regenerative tourism needs a lot of concretisation, as there are many unanswered questions. We should not solve this concretisation in ivory towers or individually, but together in an "open innovation" process, in dialogue and through personal encounters. To me, it is particularly unclear how these regenerative approaches can be monetised and how we can make the impact of regenerative projects measurable.

The aim of the initiative is therefore to develop concrete and goal-oriented proposals for solutions on how regenerative tourism can be productively realised and to demonstrate the concrete benefits.

The initiative shall offer four pillars:

1. A public information hub with collected knowledge on its website.
2. "Moverence" an annual, innovative conference on the topic.
3. "Salons" small events in all language regions on specific sub-topics in the context of regenerative tourism.
4. Impact workshops with the purpose to actively promote regenerative tourism offers at destinations through workshops and to allow places to flourish.

Realisation: We connect people of action, build a movement and achieve a diverse impact as a collaborative "first mover" platform in Europe.

So what effect does this initiative actually have?

• The initiative concretises the approach of regenerative tourism by connecting doers and making relevant practical knowledge publicly accessible to all.
• The initiative supports regenerative projects at destinations and distills "best practice" knowledge.
• The initiative helps to clarify the questions of how we can successfully market regenerative projects and translate them into real demand and local added value.
• In this way, it helps to ensure that tourism can make a contribution to regional value creation, strengthening and resilience of destinations in the mid term.
• The initiative helps to ensure that tourism regains the acceptance and goodwill of the population.
• The initiative contributes to the image of a modern, forward-looking Switzerland, that actively cares about our planet.

Why I think it makes sense to get involved with regenerative tourism

In my view, it makes sense for companies and organizations to get involved in the topic of regenerative tourism and the initiative for two reasons in particular:

1. Don't miss the train: Established companies and organisations should actively engage with this approach for strategic reasons, because it offers credible and genuinely new alternatives for local value creation and resilience at destinations. These innovations, perhaps still vague and unstable today, will develop over time and displace established players from their core markets, see Clayton Christensen.
2. The concept of natural capital is intended to emphasise the value of nature for the economy and human well-being and to incorporate it into economic decision-making processes. When natural resources are depleted or degraded, this has costs for the economy and society, for example through the loss of ecosystem services or higher costs for clean water and air. This is why I believe that preserving the planet's unique regenerative capacity through regenerative tourism projects is a rich source of innovative investment opportunities.

At its core, it is a question of survival. Also in tourism, we do have a duty to take a serious look at the consequences of our actions and courageously do everything we can to change course. This is why we shall not rest.

PS: The Moverence will take place from 26 to 29 March 2025 and tickets are on sale now.

PS: We invite partners to join this initiative. Contact us.