The dominant business paradigm of the last three decades has been built on a simple assumption: that economic growth and environmental or social impact exist in tension, and that the most responsible organisations can do is minimise the damage they create.

That assumption is now being challenged. As hospitality navigates growing environmental pressures, resource constraints and changing stakeholder expectations, many of the industry’s traditional sustainability approaches are starting to reveal their limitations. Reducing waste, lowering emissions and improving efficiency remain important, but they do not, by themselves, create healthier ecosystems, stronger communities or more resilient destinations.

Through research conducted at the Regeneration Lab, we have been exploring a different question: what would hospitality look like if regeneration, rather than mitigation, became the organising principle of the business model itself?

Regenerative hospitality does not focus on doing less harm. It focuses on creating measurable positive value for destinations, communities and natural systems. The result is not a new sustainability framework. It is a fundamentally different way of creating value.

For years, sustainability has been the industry’s preferred answer to environmental and social challenges. Hotels have reduced waste, improved energy efficiency and published increasingly sophisticated ESG reports. These efforts matter. But they are also revealing an uncomfortable truth: doing less damage is not the same as creating positive impact.

As destinations around the world confront climate change, biodiversity loss and growing pressure on local communities, a new model is emerging. It is called regeneration.

Unlike traditional sustainability, regenerative hospitality does not focus on reducing negative outcomes. It focuses on generating positive ones. It asks a different question: can a hospitality business leave a destination stronger than it found it?

This shift can be visualised as a progression from degenerative and extractive tourism models towards business models that actively restore environmental, social and economic systems. Recognising this distinction is critical because regeneration is not simply a more advanced version of sustainability. It is a fundamentally different way of creating value.

Beyond Sustainability

Regeneration is not a certification, a checklist or a marketing campaign. It is a business model.

Rather than treating environmental and social initiatives as activities that sit alongside operations, regenerative organisations build them into the core of how they create value.

To help hospitality leaders navigate this transition, research conducted through the Regeneration Lab identifies three distinct archetypes of regenerative hospitality. Together, they demonstrate that regeneration is not a single operating model, but a spectrum of strategic choices that organisations can adopt depending on their context, assets and ambition.

Archetype 1: Regeneration as the Business

In the first model, regeneration is not part of the experience. It is the experience.

The best example comes from Italy’s Albergo Diffuso model. Rather than constructing large resort complexes, these properties restore historic village homes and transform them into a distributed hospitality network supported by a central management structure.

Guests enjoy an authentic stay, but the real impact goes much deeper. Local employment is strengthened, historic architecture is preserved, small suppliers are supported and communities facing depopulation gain new economic opportunities.

Through local employment, the restoration of historic buildings and the support of independent artisans and producers, the model creates economic value while actively preserving cultural heritage and helping reverse depopulation trends in vulnerable communities.

In this model, commercial success and regeneration are inseparable. The business only succeeds if the community succeeds.

Archetype 2: Regeneration Through Operations

The second model may look like a conventional hospitality business from the outside. Guests still experience a luxury resort, premium service and world-class facilities.

However, behind the scenes, regeneration is embedded throughout the operating system.

A strong example is Toscana Resort Castelfalfi in Italy. The resort’s value proposition is closely linked to restoring and maintaining a vast rural landscape.

Guests are effectively investing in the health of the territory through their stay. Regenerative agriculture, biodiversity restoration and long-term stewardship of the landscape are embedded directly into the resort’s operating model rather than treated as separate sustainability projects.

Guests are not simply purchasing accommodation; they are directly supporting the restoration of the destination itself.

Archetype 3: Regeneration Through Reinvestment

The third approach is perhaps the most accessible for larger hospitality groups.

Here, hotels operate through traditional commercial models, focusing on performance, occupancy and profitability. However, a structured portion of the value they generate is redirected into environmental and social regeneration projects.

Barceló Hotel Group’s REGEN initiative offers a useful example. Commercial success becomes a mechanism for funding conservation programs, community development projects and ecosystem restoration efforts.

This model may be particularly relevant for large hospitality groups seeking to accelerate regenerative impact without completely redesigning existing operating structures. While the impact may sit outside the property’s daily operations, the funding mechanism remains directly linked to the business’s economic success. The impact is less directly embedded in the guest experience, but it remains strategically linked to business performance.

For many established hotel companies, this model may represent the most realistic starting point in their regenerative journey.

Why This Matters

These three approaches differ in execution, but they share a common principle: regeneration is not treated as an external obligation. It is incorporated into how value is created.

This distinction is becoming increasingly important. Travellers are paying greater attention to the impact of their choices. Investors are looking beyond short-term financial performance, and destinations increasingly expect tourism businesses to contribute positively to local communities and ecosystems.

As a result, regeneration is shifting from a niche sustainability discussion to a strategic business conversation.

The three archetypes outlined here will not look identical in every market or destination.

Different tourism ecosystems will require different approaches. However, they share one important characteristic: they move regeneration from the margins of business strategy to its centre.

The Next Competitive Advantage

For decades, hospitality organisations have competed on product, service and location.

The next generation of competitive advantage may come from something different: the ability to actively strengthen the communities, destinations and ecosystems that make hospitality possible.

The question is no longer whether sustainability matters. The question is which regenerative path organisations are willing to pursue. Because the future of hospitality may not belong to the companies that learn to do less harm. It may belong to those that learn how to create more good.

Dr Francesco Derchi is Associate Professor & Head of SPARK Innovation Sphere by Les Roches