Regenerative Hospitality Sustainability Experiences and WellBeing

[Music]

did you know that we recover best from

the stresses of daily life when our

minds are drawn towards the natural

environment

with this in mind how do we rethink and

reinvent a hospitality industry for the

decade ahead

well one way to do it is putting nature

at the center of guest experiences and

this

putting at the center of our decisions

with hotels providing safe spaces for

people to meet

and develop meaningful connections

here’s why

the hospitality industry is vulnerable

and that’s because

those businesses our businesses are

often at the front line of natural but

also man-made risk and that’s placing

guests our staff but also operating

models at

peril we’ve come to understand the

interconnectivity between climate change

and biodiversity collapse and a covid

pandemic

and we are as an industry paying a dear

price actually for the abuses of natural

capital

and to make matters more complicated

we’ve really yet to see the depth of

change or transformation

needed and required to deal with

uncertainty planetary tipping points are

being crossed

and so we follow a series of s-curves

with growth and decline cycles

but only few have come to realize that

nothing grows forever on a finite planet

the understanding of s-curve patterns

can help us to plan for the future to

adapt

innovate reinvent but also build

resilience

it also boosts creativity all of which

is needed in great dosage these days

and so the talks in hospitality are

about recovery and resilience

recalibration pivoting

or even bouncing back but we’ve been

shaken to the core here and we need to

take stock of our industry’s abilities

figuring out really what’s working well

and doesn’t need changing but also

what is no longer working or what’s no

longer appropriate

and actually needs changing and of

course underpinning all of this

is the idea of bouncing forward which is

really the ability to adapt

and regenerate and we know that in

biology an organism has the power to

repair or redevelop certain damaged

components

well ecosystems do something similar

they’re regenerating a new habitat

following a forest fire for example and

this is also nothing new in the business

world either

a few years ago the ellen mccarter

foundation introduced the concept of

circular economies or an economy that is

restorative and regenerative by

design and aims so how about we aim for

sustainability and without limits

where regeneration is the norm and not

the exception

well the following model here may help

to picture

the idea so what we have is a vertical

y-axis that represents the condition of

the chosen system such as the state of

the biodiversity

the state of the climate it could be the

community in which the hotel operates

for example

now every day we make decisions about

the future development of hotels

we make decisions about daily operations

for example and

if those decisions are made on

short-term benefits only

well the results of those decisions may

actually lead the business to quite an

undesirable future

and this is what we label here as

unsustainable production

now there are various push and pull

factors here in society that could be

legislative

pressure for example with new laws it

could be consumer demands

it could be a sort of scrutiny from

civil society so there’s a large section

of the hospitality sector that’s taking

the road of corporate social

responsibility

and they’re making incremental

improvements it makes it possible

possibly for those business to

eventually reach a state of sustainable

production

but this sets the very minimum that

should be required by society

sustainable production is thus what we

actually label desired status quo

the inherent limit to that concept of

sustainable production is due to the

limits in carrying capacity

that is the number of people animals

crops but also travelers which a region

can support without

environmental degradation in a growing

world and so for

far too long sustainability has largely

taken the duty of

minimizing damage and businesses that

wish to go beyond sustainable

productions are rare

however and this is what’s interesting

some hospitality entrepreneurs

have actually managed to build and

operate hotels that go beyond the basic

of

recycling or limiting or offsetting the

impacts of hospitality

the idea here is that production of

sustainability takes place when

ecological social or climate systems are

in better conditions because the

business is present in society

so there’s a very small number of

players in the hospitality industry that

are actually operating on that mode but

this is actually set to change

because there are best practices here

that are brought forward by really

passionate innovators

you know we’re talking about the

creation of energy plus hotels we’re

talking about hotels that are dedicated

to repairing

the natural capital in the destinations

they are operating in

and so the model of production of

sustainability is the closest to

the concept of regenerative hospitality

and this is important because the

sustainability agenda

is no longer just simply about

conserving resources it’s also about

inclusivity

employee and guest well-being it’s about

stimulating the local economy

and this is really where experiences

come into the realm of regeneration and

sustainability

now the experienced economy is really an

essential part of today’s hospitality

industry

in fact when you think about it creating

memorable experience is really the

essence of hospitality

and the pioneer work from pine and

gilmore

highlights how the hotel sector can

actually be leveraged to stage more

compelling experience

however what’s happening is we’re seeing

here changes in our social fabric on

on how we want to but also how we need

to spend time

the pandemic has really brought a new

layer of complexity and

on how we also understand well-being and

accordingly how we choose to spend our

leisure time

we no longer operate in a world in which

you know we seek to balance

work and play and then use a holiday or

hotel to escape

in fact the pandemic has blurred the

boundaries even further for those

working from home so

that are seeking you know we’re seeking

to balance your physical intellectual

emotional social well-being and that’s

far from being easy

and as we said at the start of this talk

people recover best from the stresses of

daily life

when their minds are drawn towards

natural environment

and evidence shows that it shows that

spending time in nature helps reduce

anxiety it improves mental health and

well-being

let alone of course boosting physical

health and so people

suffering from mental fatigue are suited

by natural element that could be trees

and plants flowers animals birds

the effects of a walk in a forest helps

reduce muscle tension

and really in in times such as these

when we’re confined at home

many are missing those nature escapes

this is like a

forced disengagement from nature it even

has a name

it’s known as nature deficit disorder

and it’s taken

new level of importance in light of the

great lockdown

so this sort of nature deprivation it’s

quite actually typical of urban centers

as we know

but one study found that even a

20-minute dose

of nature in city reduces stress levels

and this dose can

equally come from a walk in a park a

backyard

or even attending your potted plants on

a balcony so

how about hospitality here well

hospitality entrepreneurs that are

seeking to distinguish themselves in the

market

can re-imagine and reinvent the

hospitality environment with nature

at the center of the guest experience so

it’s no longer enough

to just craft a beautiful building and

space that people will enjoy no

leaders of hospitality have already

recognized that

their core competency in fact lies in

building relationships

and so future hospitality concepts here

can play a critical role

in building that bridge building a

bridge between humans and nature

and in fact working as a preventive

means

in individual well-being guesting at a

tree house hotels for example come away

with the experience feeling

spiritually and bodily refreshed there’s

a recent survey of more than one

thousand travelers on the motivation for

staying at ecolodges in patagonia

showed that connection to nature is in

fact the main motivating factor for

taking the holiday in the first place

and so the hospitality experience really

must go beyond the design of a trendy

lobby

or beyond the pretty view of a room it’s

about putting more nature

in hotels and in people’s lives and

along the same lines

fostering a regenerative connection to

the outside world

or surrounding both social and

environmental terms

it really is about leaving the place

better than you found it

and coming back home healthier

physically spiritually than you left

regenerative hospitality when you think

about it it’s actually less about bucket

lists

and trophy collections it’s more about

economies of meaning

leisure time is time on and not time

off regenerative hospitality is equally

about restoring

external environment as it is about

individual serenity

and so this has much to do about the

quality of travel it has to do with the

quality of

your hotel stay but it has to do about

the quality of life of course and

knowing what we do about the state of

our planet

it’s certainly not a question of luxury

for the lucky few

but one of necessity for all of us

[Music]