Call for papers

Special Issue on Regenerative Tourism

Tourism research and practice are increasingly called to move beyond sustainability and toward regenerative ways of thinking, doing and knowing. While sustainability has often focused on reducing harm and maintaining existing systems, regenerative tourism seeks to improve the regenerative capacity and the social and ecological wellbeing of places and communities (Bellato et al., 2023; Iddawala & Lee, 2025). It approaches tourism as part of a living system: a complex web of relationships between people, communities, cultures, economies, landscapes and more-than-human nature (Bellato et al., 2022).

The special issue invites researchers to discuss regenerative tourism both as an emerging concept and as a practical approach to tourism development, governance and everyday action. We are particularly interested in contributions that examine how regenerative principles are interpreted, applied, challenged, or evaluated in specific tourism contexts. These may include studies of destinations, communities, enterprises, policies, visitor practices, ecological restoration, cultural revitalisation or collaborative governance. Regenerative tourism requires methodologically innovative approaches aligned with regenerative principles (Bellato & Pollock, 2025). It is a methodologically rich and experimental field, dominated by qualitative, participatory, and systems-oriented approaches. Therefore, we also invite contributions to advance methodological considerations in regenerative tourism.

To maintain a focused dialogue, submissions should move beyond general discussions of sustainable tourism by addressing the distinctive contribution, tensions, or implications of a regenerative approach. In doing so, the issue seeks to advance understanding of how tourism may move beyond reducing negative impacts toward actively contributing to reciprocal relationships between visitors, communities, businesses, policymakers and the more-than-human world.

Submissions may address, but are not limited to, the following themes:

• Theoretical perspectives of regenerative tourism – concepts and principles

• Tourism entrepreneurs and SMEs as change agents: regenerative business models, practices and products

• Place literacy, place-sourced and indigenous knowledge, storytelling

• Environmental regeneration: regeneration of land, soil, water bodies, forests through tourism

• Social and cultural regeneration: empowering local communities, revitalising cultural heritage through tourism

• Economic diversification and resilience, revenue strategies

• Open collaboration and community participatory approaches

• Guest engagement: encouraging guests to become active participants in regeneration

• Measuring regenerative impact

• Policy integration and regenerative destination planning: aligning regenerative goals with public policies and destination strategies

• Case studies of regenerative tourism initiatives in urban, rural, coastal, Arctic, Indigenous, island or peripheral contexts.

We encourage submissions from diverse disciplinary, methodological, and geographical perspectives. Conceptual articles, empirical studies, case studies, methodological papers, and practitioner perspectives are all welcome. We also invite critical reflection on the limitations, risks and contradictions of regenerative tourism as it enters academic, policy, and industry discourse.

Manuscripts should follow the author guidelines of the journal. Submissions may be written in Finnish, Swedish or English, in accordance with the journal’s language policy.

Guest editors:

Kati Koivunen, Lapland University of Applied Sciences

Sanna-Mari Renfors, Lapland University of Applied Sciences

Monika Luthje, University of Lapland

Important dates:

Abstract submission deadline: 10 September 2026

Notification of abstract acceptance: 15 September 2026

Full manuscript deadline (first draft): 10 December 2026

Expected publication: end of May 2027 (pre-publishing possible for articles that are accepted earlier)

Submission instructions:

Send your abstract by email to kati.koivunen@lapinamk.fi and sanna-mari.renfors@lapinamk.fi

Manuscripts will undergo the journal’s standard peer-review process

References

Bellato, L. & Pollock, A. (2025). Regenerative tourism: A state-of-the-art review. Tourism Geographies, 27(3–4), 558–567. https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2023.2294366

Bellato, L., Frantzeskaki, N. & Nygaard, C. A. (2023). Regenerative tourism: A conceptual framework leveraging theory and practice. Tourism Geographies, 25(4), 1026–1046. https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2022.2044376

Bellato, L., Frantzeskaki, N., Briceño Fiebig, C., Pollock, A., Dens, E. & Reed, B. (2022). Transformative roles in tourism: Adopting living systems’ thinking for regenerative futures. Journal of Tourism Futures, 8(3), 312–329. https://doi.org/10.1108/JTF-11-2021-0256

Iddawala, J. & Lee, D. (2025). Regenerative tourism: Context and conceptualisations. Tourism Planning & Development, 1–31. https://doi.org/10.1080/21568316.2025.2527614