Sustainability is important for hotels. It helps in the fight against climate change, especially with travel being cited as a prominent contributor. And it can help save on operating expenses through reduced energy consumption, recycling or food waste efficiency programs.
But ultimately, it’s a checklist; an SOP. Sustainability doesn’t sell rooms.
But there’s a level above sustainability that can work to generate awareness, garner prestige, grow occupancy and get you that ADR uplift that’s been mandated.
The buzzword that encapsulates this step above is "stewardship." It’s a bit ambiguous as it can apply to the land, the community or a culture as a whole. In essence, being a steward means that your hotel becomes both a protector of the past as well as a diligent patron for a better tomorrow.
To focus the conversation for the rest of this column, let’s dissect "regenerative tourism," which is often synonymous with stewardship. Regeneration implies resuscitating something that’s dwindling or making a place better than when you first found it. Therein, for the context of primarily rural resorts, there’s the prospects of ‘regenerative agriculture’ taking place on premises or in partnership with nearby farms.
We bring this to your attention because adding these programs and amenities to your hotel will result in huge increases to the business:
- Travelers are increasingly seeking nature-based hotel experiences, meaning your property will generate lots of interest from this segment.
- It’s storytelling that merits praise from all stakeholders from local government and travel publication writers through to individual associates who increasingly want to work for companies that support noble causes.
- Regenerative agriculture also has specific wellness applications wherein organic produce is healthier and immersive farm-to-table experiences offer a great way to enter the nature therapy space.
While at the outset, these programs may seem quite daunting and expensive to set up — they are! — it may be best to offer a plethora of examples of hotels from around the world that are putting these principles into practice and realizing tremendous value as a result. Seeing is believing after all, so here’s a full list:
- Babylonstoren is the first example and the quintessential example of immersive agricultural experiences. Hailing from South Africa, they have literally everything on-site: farming, vineyards, olive oil production, herbal tea growing, a bakery, a water buffalo creamery, together supporting over 700 locals with careers.
- The sister property for Babylonstoren, The Newt in Somerset in England, has innumerable garden-to-table operations including an on-site cidery, wherein any one-sentence description of what’s happening here is a disservice to this gem of a resort.
- To shift to an urban example of regenerative tourism, Populus Denver’s One Night One Tree initiative translates to: for every night a guest stays, the property plants a tree, partnering with the National Forest Foundation to facilitate regionally specific tree planting.
- “Good Times, Do Good” is the motto of Desa Potato Head in Bali, Indonesia, where everything revolves around the idea of circular regeneration with imaginatively upcycling the waste produced into furniture, amenities, art and more.
- The BodyHoliday in Saint Lucia offers its landmark I-TAL experience where guests are guided through the terraced gardens, picking their own vegetables and cooking them at an outdoor kitchen.
- At Lake Austin Spa Resort, it’s an all-inclusive dining experience whereby the on-site herb garden serves as part of the arrival experience through its placement right next to the lobby, thereby inviting guests to walk about and learn a bit about each individual plant.
- Cravieral Farmhouse in Portugal is a small boutique inn wherein guests can pick vegetables in the garden — simple yet spectacular with the aim for 70% of ingredients coming from the property's vegetable garden and orchard with the remaining 30% from producers in the Odemira region.
- Fairmont Waterfront in Vancouver has a 2,100-square-foot rooftop garden that’s home for thousands of honeybees, fruits and vegetables, with daily tours offered to guests.
- Belle Mont Sanctuary Resort in St. Kitts is yet another example of a Caribbean trendsetter that’s using its collaborations with local farmers — and on-site farming — to highlight Kittian cuisine and stand apart from other resorts.
- With a health-through-eating philosophy, Villa Eden in Merano is a progenitor of this trend, now with a decades-long list of returning guests who relish in the hyper-regionality of the cuisine and the wellness resort’s commitment to organic, on-site production.
- “Soil to Soul” is Sterrekopje’s motto in South Africa, wherein the 12-key resort’s 50-hectare farm includes a biodiverse array of 60 varietals of indigenous and heritage plants, and forms one pillar of the hotel’s wellness branding which also brings together a focus on the creative arts.
- The 50-acre farm of The Weston in Vermont offers a great example of how to make regenerative tourism work at the four-star level.
- Castle Hot Springs in Arizona is a nearly one-century-old hallmark of American ultraluxury, with a more recent focus on using a ‘closed-loop’ system of minimal tillage, crop rotation and organic matter as compost to support their farm-to-fork and farm-to-bar experiences designed to help guests forma direct connection with their food sources.
- As a brand standard for the multi-property The Pig in the United Kingdom, each location combines some form of on-site agriculture as well as a focus on hyper-local culinary design and getting back to pre-industrial preparation methods like pickling and clamping.
While on the surface, a lot of these examples skew towards luxury, as history has shown, trends that start in luxury hospitality inevitably move down across the entire chain scale.
Right now, and before every hotel under the sun is doing some form of regenerative tourism, there’s a real opportunity to create immense value for your brand. And ultimately, it’s good for the planet, so why not investigate these examples to see what you can do?
Adam and Larry Mogelonsky are partners of Hotel Mogel Consulting Ltd., a Toronto-based consulting practice. Larry focuses on asset management, sales and operations while Adam specializes in hotel technology and marketing.
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