Transformative epistemologies for regenerative tourism: towards a decolonial paradigm in science and practice?

Abstract

There is a growing scholarly interest in the potential of regenerative tourism approaches to address sustainability challenges. Drawing from an ecological worldview that interweaves Indigenous and Western knowledge systems, regenerative tourism approaches seek to increase the capacity of support systems for fulfilling net-positive social-ecological effects. We argue that Western scientific paradigms drive current tourism research methodologies and are sometimes insufficient and unfit to (advance) regenerative tourism research. The extent to which new research methodological approaches can align with the ecological worldview and regenerative paradigm is an underpinning premise. As part of a broader study of the emerging regenerative tourism concept, a scoping review of 84 peer-reviewed and 116 grey literature articles, supplemented by consultations with nine regenerative tourism practitioners, six Indigenous practitioners and one cultural knowledge holder, identified nine research gaps that explicate this mismatch. An analytical framework guided the gap analysis and the formulation of a future research agenda. Findings suggest that tourism scholarship is not keeping pace with the evolution of regenerative tourism, requiring additional and new approaches. A transformational decolonial, transdisciplinary research paradigm is proposed that fully embraces the regenerative tourism paradigm and thus enables knowledge production that facilitates plural regenerative tourism futures.