What Is This Place Asking of Us?
Amanda Ho argues that sustainability, while valuable, is no longer enough for a hospitality industry facing climate instability, biodiversity loss, and social inequity. Regeneration is proposed as a deeper, place-based paradigm that asks a fundamental question: “What is this place asking of us?” Instead of treating hotels as isolated assets, it frames them as actors within living systems of community, culture, and ecology, illustrated through...
The hospitality industry finds itself at a defining moment, one in which the pressures of climate instability, biodiversity loss, cultural homogenization, and widening social inequities are no longer distant projections but present realities that directly shape the landscapes, communities, and destinations upon which tourism depends.
For more than two decades, sustainability has served as the guiding framework through which hospitality leaders have attempted to respond to these pressures, resulting in important operational improvements such as reduced energy consumption, water conservation systems, elimination of single-use plastics, carbon measurement initiatives, and increasingly sophisticated ESG reporting standards. These efforts represent meaningful progress and signal an industry that is capable of adaptation. Yet despite these advancements, the larger trajectory of environmental and social degradation has not fundamentally shifted, prompting a deeper and more uncomfortable reflection: is incremental sustainability sufficient in an era that demands systemic change?
The Hotel Yearbook 2026 - Sustainability Edition
The HYB 2026 The Regenerative Question: What Hospitality Must Become tackles regenerative hospitality's fundamental tensions. Moving beyond sustainability buzzwords, contributors will explore three perspectives: purists advocating holistic living-systems approaches; realists demanding measurable frameworks for accountability and scalability; and strategists seeking pragmatic balance between transformation and implementation. This edition serves as a critical forum to interrogate the divides, identify synergies, and define actionable pathways forward. By convening industry experts, researchers, and entrepreneurs, we transform contested concepts into constructive dialogue and, ultimately, clarifying what regenerative hospitality authentically is and isn't.