Regenerative Tourism – beyond the buzzword
Truth Behind Travel Podcast
Regenerative Tourism - beyond the buzzword in conversation with Tina O'Dwyer
Dolores Semeraro interviews Tina O’Dwyer – Founder & Chief Facilitator at The Tourism Space® on Regenerative Tourism: where does a destination start the journey?
Tina shares her journey from eco-tourism to regenerative tourism, emphasizing the importance of local community involvement and sustainable practices. She highlights the need for destinations to shift from focusing on visitor numbers to creating a vision for the place.
She also discusses the challenges of balancing economic viability with environmental and social sustainability, and the role of collaboration among various stakeholders.
They both touch on the importance of leadership and community building in achieving regenerative tourism goals.
The Highlights
On this episode:
Challenges and Resistance in Implementing Regenerative Tourism
- The challenges destinations face when transitioning to regenerative tourism, the importance of asking new questions to frame tourism differently and create a shared vision.
- The resistance and constraints, such as economic viability and policy limitations and the need for collaborative approaches and the involvement of various stakeholders, including local communities and businesses.
Economic Perspective and Visitor Segmentation
- The economic aspects of regenerative tourism and the importance of measuring local economic impact which includes the shift from national-level metrics to local economic measures, focusing on the benefits to local businesses and communities.
- The need to attract the right type of visitors who value the unique experiences and local culture with ‘the reverse segmentation’ to find visitors who share the same values and interests as the destination.
Responsibility and Visitor Behaviour
- The responsibility of visitors and businesses in maintaining the integrity of regenerative tourism and the role of messaging in visitor segmentation.
- The challenges of balancing economic growth with environmental and social sustainability highlighting the need for destinations to present their best possible experiences while maintaining their unique character.
Collaboration and Community Involvement
- The need to balance economic growth with environmental and social sustainability and measuring impact and creating accountability in regenerative tourism.
- The role of local communities, businesses, policy makers, and other stakeholders in creating a shared vision through collaboration.
About Tina O'Dwyer
She is the Founder and CEO of the Tourism Space, a leading consultancy and education provider partnering with the public sector to enable sustainable, regenerative and collaborative approaches to tourism. They work alongside government departments, public sector agencies, not-for-profit organisations, destination stewards, and EU projects to drive meaningful change.
Working on the practice of sustainable and regenerative tourism since 2009, her contributions have been recognised nationally and internationally through multiple awards, including the All-Ireland Business Foundation’s Tourism Businessperson of the Year award.
She serves as Sustainability Advisor for World Travel Market in London, on the Sustainability Committee of the Irish Association of Visitor Experiences and Attractions (AVEA) and as a Member of the Advisory Board of Atlantic Technological University (ATU).
About The Tourism Space
The Tourism Space® is a leading international consultancy that specialises in enabling sustainable, regenerative and collaborative approaches to tourism.
They provide training, facilitation, coaching, speaking and consultancy services to government departments, public sector agencies, not-for-profit organisations, European Institutions and EU-funded projects.
