There’s a new catchphrase going around now: Regenerative Travel. The New York Times baptized the new phrase last August, in a story called: Move Over, Sustainable Travel. Regenerative Travel Has Arrived.
The subhead asks the question: “Can a post-vaccine return to travel be smarter and greener than it was before March 2020?”
To cut to the chase, I say ‘yes.’ It can and it will. It must. If the travel industry wants to keep in touch with its customers, it has to. In fact, the travel industry has been ahead of the public in these trends for a long time. In a sense, we are seeing the market catching up on where a lot of tour operators and lodge operators have been for decades.
Ever since early in the pandemic—when its effects were most strenuous and shocking, when the danger and uncertainty were so high that it forced us to suddenly, radically change the way we were living—I have believed that the change imposed has been more profound than we have the capacity to appreciate this close to the event.
There is little doubt in my mind that the world population was stunned into a change of consciousness by the experience of seeing nature clobber us so hard that it tore at the foundations of our civilization. It showed in stark terms how fragile our support systems are, and how much our survival depends on forces of nature that we have always taken for granted.
Now as the effects of Covid die down, we’re back to that place of trying to “get back to normal.” It’s normal to want to return to normal, to bounce right back to how it used to be. While we try to turn on our automatic pilots and return to the past, we all know underneath that we can never go back to what it was, not entirely. And we would not want to, knowing what we now know. We return to business now with an enlarged vision of our world, and a more realistic idea of our place in it and the extent of our power over it. You know the old saying: once a mind has been stretched to accommodate a new idea, it never returns to its previous dimension.
We’ve suffered and lost enough from the pandemic, we might as well take full advantage of whatever it has given us. It has given us a higher level of consciousness about issues of the environment. The pandemic was brutal; it showed us that respect for nature is not just about being nice—it’s about our own survival.
There is abundant market research to confirm that people are returning to a hopefully post-pandemic world with a greater sensitivity to environmental concerns. Though, I don’t need market research to see something that is so tangible. To me, it’s self-evident. The pandemic changed people. That’s one of the ways.
People increasingly want to patronize businesses that show a high level of responsibility toward the environment. So travel companies, even more than companies in general, must also show a higher level of responsibility.
The Times article, by Elaine Glusac, gives us a concise definition of this new trend (would it be pushing it to call it a “movement”?).
If sustainable tourism, which aims to counterbalance the social and environmental impacts associated with travel, was the aspirational outer limit of ecotourism before the pandemic, the new frontier is “regenerative travel,” or leaving a place better than you found it.
Of course, it was not the outer limit of efforts. It was the average. There were many companies that went far beyond that. Yet, the point is still good. Sustainable tourism must go beyond just limiting damage.
Conceptually, the new nomenclature is an attempt to ratchet up efforts to a higher notch. At one point, it may have been good enough to try to limit one’s footprint at a destination, to minimize or compensate for any possible damage. Now, with the effects of climate change becoming ever more vivid and forcing the need for practical solutions, there is a greater sense of urgency about these issues. Tourism must not be seen as a degrading force, but rather as a beneficial one. Travel companies of any kind must be helping the places they visit, making clear efforts to contribute, to leave the place better than they found it. That’s going to be business as usual.
Of course, it raises the question: “Are these just words, or does it really stand for something real?”
Robin Tauck, the former Chair of Tourism Cares and an active advocate of sustainable travel since her days as president of Tauck in the late 1990s, told me, “To quote Greta Thunberg—it is ‘blah blah blah’ unless action is taken.”
Greta’s reproach was spoken to the faces of “world leaders,” who generally have failed to take meaningful action over the decades as the problem of climate change has continued to gather force. But it’s a different story in the private sector, and especially the travel industry. The travel industry, through individual companies like Tauck and collectively through Tourism Cares, has been taking a lead in meaningful action for decades, even as governments have been stymied and gridlocked in the face of the threat.
The travel industry has a lot to be proud of in this regard. Environmental protection has long been a high priority for tour operators and lodge operators. I’ve been to many private reserves in Africa that were acquired by someone with access to capital for the purpose of preserving the natural landscape and wildlife, with tourism used to raise money to support environmental efforts. It turns the profit motive on its head. It is an appropriate reframing of it because without the environment there is no tourism and there is no profit.
Obviously, the world has a long way to go when dealing with our environmental problems, but the travel industry has been a leader, certainly one of the most vital forces for environmental protection within the business sector. I couldn’t begin to list all of the philanthropic projects of the major tour operators. It’s a huge list, reflecting a concerted effort among the community of travel professionals.
Tourism Cares is an association that originated in the ‘90s under the U.S. Tour Operators Association as Travelers Conservation Foundation, and was later joined by the industry at large for the purpose of doing precisely what regenerative travel now refers to. It’s not just refraining from damaging places, but actively helping them and gathering large numbers of volunteers to do the physical labor required to rehabilitate tourism sites in need. Tourism Cares is a huge story on its own.
I welcome the new catchphrase, and I do believe it is more than just words. I welcome attempts to ratchet up environmental consciousness and action. Call it ecotourism, sustainable tourism, responsible tourism, or green tourism. Call it whatever you like. Change the name periodically to keep it fresh, to keep it advancing. It’s all good. It’s the action that counts. And the global tourism industry has been, and will continue to be, a leader in this area as efforts continue to reach for higher bars.
David Cogswell is a freelance writer working remotely, from wherever he is at the moment. Born at the dead center of the United States during the last century, he has been incessantly moving and exploring for decades. His articles have appeared in the Chicago Tribune, the Los Angeles Times, Fortune, Fox News, Luxury Travel Magazine, Travel Weekly, Travel Market Report, Travel Agent Magazine, TravelPulse.com, Quirkycruise.com, and other publications. He is the author of four books and a contributor to several others. He was last seen somewhere in the Northeast US.
