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
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