Bridging sustainable and regenerative tourism through a place-based approach

Tourism is increasingly implicated in global crises, from climate change and biodiversity loss to overtourism and community displacement. While sustainable tourism has long sought to mitigate negative impacts and promote long-term viability, it has often been constrained by technocratic framings that overlook deeper issues of justice and power. In contrast, regenerative tourism has emerged as a more radical paradigm, seeking to restore and enhance socio-ecological systems. This work argues that these approaches are not mutually exclusive. Through a place-based approach, sustainable and regenerative tourism can be meaningfully integrated, centring the well-being of communities and ecosystems while attending to cultural specificities, and local knowledge systems. Such integration offers a pathway for tourism to move beyond its limitations and evolve into a transformative force for justice, resilience, and multispecies flourishing.