Sustainability has profoundly transformed the hospitality industry. A growing movement is yet pushing hotels and resorts to move toward something more ambitious: actively restoring and regenerating the natural environments on which they depend, while celebrating and supporting the communities that live, work and interact with the hotel.
In fact, the hospitality industry was built on a simple promise — to welcome, to host, to create experiences that feel, even briefly, like being somewhere you belong.
But behind that promise, a contradiction has been growing. Hotels and resorts depend entirely on the health of the places they occupy: they depend on clean water, stable climates, thriving local economies and living cultures. And yet the dominant model of hospitality development has extracted far more from these systems than it has returned.¹
Sustainability offered a response but – in general terms- fostered a net-zero culture (i.e. a balance between the negative externalities a business generates and the positive offsetting actions it takes to compensate for them); by contrast the growing movement of regeneration is concerned with net-positive impact on the interconnected natural and social ecosystems around the business: rather than seeking a zero-sum outcome, regenerative properties ask whether a business’s presence in a place generates more value than it consumes at natural and social level. Not balance, but surplus. The ecosystems are healthier, the community is stronger, the culture is more vibrant because the business actively contributes to the enhancement, restoration and even regeneration of the place and its people.¹
In a nutshell, regenerative hospitality addresses the converging crisis we are living in a direct way. It represents a shift from a net-zero mindset, to a net- positive approach, where businesses actively restore and strengthen the interconnected ecosystems around and within them. Hospitality organization that embraces regeneration develop what we call “Place Intelligence”: a business’s capacity to genuinely understand and contribute to the natural and social ecosystems it operates within.
Hotels that take these questions seriously stop being self-contained in worlds and become embedded in where they are. They celebrate local nature and local culture as a core value.
This stems in what we call “People Intelligence”: the relational ecosystem that connects a hospitality business to its guests and community. In regenerative hospitality, Place Intelligence shapes this ecosystem, enabling authentic and potentially transformative experiences rooted in local nature, culture and community. Designed by hosts, for guests.²
Through my work with hotels aspiring to become regenerative, I have witnessed a profound mindset shift. Organisations begin restoring local ecosystems by planting indigenous trees, protecting native species, supporting community entrepreneurship and creating hospitality- related employment and training opportunities for local residents.
In doing so, employees increasingly recognise that they are part of a living ecosystem and can actively contribute to its vitality.
This in turn creates more authentic experiences for guests, who are invited to participate in and contribute to the regenerative journey.
Regeneration is not a new form of sustainability: it is a paradigm shift for the hospitality industry: it is context-specific by nature and is rooted in the specific conditions of each place, not in a universal set of interventions. The question is not whether you have the budget for a rewilding program. It is whether you understand the place you are part of well enough to know what contribution you can make.
Regenerative hospitality is no longer limited to a handful of pioneering properties such as Playa Viva in Mexico or Rock House in Jamaica, which were designed from the outset around regenerative principles. It reflects a broader shift in how hospitality businesses define value creation. Rather than measuring success solely through operational or financial performance, regenerative organisations assess their ability to strengthen the natural and social systems on which their business depends. This approach requires a deep understanding of local realities and a commitment to generating positive outcomes for communities, ecosystems and guests alike.³
Therefore, regenerative hospitality is not a trend. It is a response to structural pressures that are not going away. It is ultimately a business orientation and the shift it requires is real — longer time horizons, accountability to stakeholders who don’t appear on a conventional balance sheet, genuine humility about what a business can control. But the opportunity is correspondingly large: for hospitality to be not just a provider of beds, breakfast and eventually experiences, but an active force for the renewal of ecosystems, communities and, ultimately, guests themselves.³
Alessandro Inversini – Full Professor and Associate Dean Research & Thought Leadership, EHL Hospitality Business School
Accuracy Talks Straight #16 – Academic Insight