The Policy-Practice Disconnect in Tourism: Benchmarking theTransition from Sustainability to Regeneration through a MultiCountry and Hotel Industry Analysis

Abstract

The global tourism industry, contributing nearly 10% to global GDP and employing one in ten workers worldwide, faces an existential imperative to evolve beyond its traditional extractive development model implicated in biodiversity loss, cultural homogenization, economic leakage, and ecosystem degradation. The prevailing sustainability paradigm, operationalized through frameworks such as the UNWTO's Measuring Sustainable Tourism (MST), has dominated policy and practice for over three decades. However, mounting evidence suggests that "doing less harm" constitutes insufficient ambition, necessitating a shift toward regenerative tourism defined as tourism that actively restores ecosystems and empowers communities. Despite its conceptual promise, regenerative tourism suffers from a critical implementation gap characterized by a stark absence of standardized, empirically validated frameworks. This vacuum manifests as a significant disconnect between macro-level policy indicators measuring harm reduction and micro-level industry practices pioneering restoration. This study addresses this gap through a mixed-methods sequential explanatory design, analyzing UNWTO indicators across ten countries (2015–2023) and benchmarking practices from six international hotel chains (2018–2023), validated via expert Delphi panels. Findings confirm a stark "regeneration gap" in policy metrics, revealing that while Bhutan excels in sustainability (0.31 tCO₂e/tourist), UNWTO frameworks fail to measure biodiversity net-gain or water replenishment. Concurrently, hotel benchmarks reveal a spectrum of practice: major chains progress on efficiency (renewable energy: 40%, while leaders like Six Senses achieve restorative outcomes (water replenishment: 42.3%; 100% living wage). The core output is a validated, four-tiered Regenerative Tourism Framework providing specific KPIs and targets. The study concludes that bridging the policy-practice misalignment is essential for sector-wide transformation. Recommendations include integrating net-positive indicators into MST frameworks, adopting the tiered framework as a strategic roadmap, developing regeneration accounting standards, and conducting longitudinal impact assessments. The framework offers a practical toolkit to transform tourism from an extractive to a healing force.