My journey toward regenerative futures
Martin Hohn reflects on a personal journey from traditional hospitality management toward regeneration, arguing that sustainability has been diluted and cannot succeed as long as infinite economic growth clashes with planetary boundaries. Regeneration is framed not as a technological fix but as a social and mindset shift: a place-based, whole-systems approach that reconnects hospitality with life, community, and ecosystem health.
When I came across the term regeneration six years ago, I loved the idea. As the years went by, it became clear that “regeneration” faced the same fate as “sustainability” — it got diluted and misunderstood.
When the UN released the Brundtland Report in 1987, the definition of the term sustainability was as follows: Development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.
As of today, we are very far away from that goal.
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.