Regenerative Travel
    Gathering Grounds

    Included with Advisor Certification · Session Library

    Gathering Grounds

    The conversations behind regenerative hospitality, ready to revisit.

    Seven panels. More than six hours of candid conversations with hoteliers, founders and practitioners. Now included with Travel Advisor Certification, alongside the six-week course, live sessions and a verified credential.

    Explore Advisor CertificationWatch the recordings

    $349 founding rate · First year of certification included

    All seven recorded panelsWatch at your own paceNetworking edited out

    7

    Expert panels

    6+ hours

    Recorded conversations

    6

    Week course

    $349

    Founding rate

    From conversation to practice

    Learn directly from the people doing the work

    The operator perspective

    Hear how properties approach ethical design, water and waste, local economies, growth and lasting guest impact.

    Turn ideas into action

    Pair each conversation with the certification course, case studies from member properties and two live sessions.

    Return to what matters

    Revisit the sessions at your own pace and build a deeper understanding of the practices behind genuinely regenerative travel.

    Travel Advisor Certification · The complete bundle

    The Session Library is included

    Gathering Grounds took place on October 14–15, 2026. The recorded panels now form the Session Library included with certification. This is not a new live event or a separate event ticket.

    • Seven panels with networking edited out
    • Six-week online certification course
    • Two live sessions with member hotels
    • Verified badge and advisor directory listing

    Founding enrollment

    $349

    First year of certification included · Closes 28 February 2027

    Explore Advisor Certification

    Session Library access included with enrollment.

    “Great to hear directly from these businesses and get a sense of where the evolution of regenerative travel is now.”
    Joanne
    “Amazing talks, amazing speakers. I feel, personally, re-generated, as I listened to everyone today.”
    Beng Abella Lipsey
    “I always know that when I use partners like these, not only will the clients be happy but we will be able to really show them what it means to have a travel experience that is a force for good.”
    Rebecca Gade, Veggies Abroad

    Inside the Session Library

    Seven conversations worth returning to

    From the decisions inside a property to the wider systems around it, the two-day gathering explored what regenerative travel takes in practice.

    Day One · Regeneration in Practice

    Panel 1

    Built with Intention: Craft, Materials & Ethical Design

    Every place we stay is built from something, and those choices shape how a hotel sits within its landscape and its community. This panel looks at how regenerative properties are reviving traditional building techniques, sourcing materials from the land around them and working hand in hand with local artisans to create spaces that belong to their place. Speakers will share how decisions about earth, stone, timber, bamboo and textiles carry cultural memory, lower environmental impact and keep skills and income circulating locally. The conversation also gets into the practical realities, from finding and training craftspeople to balancing guest expectations with vernacular design, and asks what it takes for architecture, engineering and interiors to give back more than they take.

    Moderator

    Laura Field, Freelance travel journalist

    Laura is a trilingual travel writer, journalist and editor working across English, French and Spanish. During her years at Wanderlust she rose from Special Features Assistant Editor to Regional Editor, and she now writes and edits independently for titles including The Independent, The Telegraph, Time Out and Adventure.com. Her work centres on responsible and regenerative travel, food, artisan craft, wellness, and community-led and Indigenous tourism. She has lived and worked in France, Ecuador, Colombia and Argentina, and holds an MA in French and Spanish Language and Literature from the University of Oxford. Latin America and Latin Europe remain the regions closest to her heart.

    Panelists

    • Inge De Lathauwer — Founder, Sumba Hospitality Foundation
    • Rigzin Wangtak Kalon — Founder, Lchang Nang Retreat
    • Mendi Siahandan — Head of Operations, Eco-Mantra
    • René Vijay Shrestha Einhaus — Dwarika's Collection (Dwarika's Hotel and Dwarika's Resort)

    Panel 2

    When the Destination Says No: Overtourism Backlash and Local Pushback

    Across the world, residents are pushing back against tourism that crowds their streets, strains their resources and prices them out of their homes. This panel brings together perspectives from Ladakh, coastal Alaska, the Himalaya, Pemba Island and Türkiye to explore how destinations are responding and what the travel industry can do differently. Speakers share how they work with communities to protect fragile places, spread visitor impact more fairly and build tourism that locals actively welcome.

    Moderator

    Giselle Brantley, Business Development Manager, Iconic Adventures

    Giselle brings more than 15 years of experience in luxury hospitality with organisations including Private Escapes and Inspirato. Behind her industry credentials is an advocate at heart, driven by a deep commitment to protecting the planet's natural resources, empowering women and building bridges across cultures. That commitment has led her to volunteer with RISE Travel Institute in Strategic Partnerships and Public Relations, and to take an active role with the Transformational Travel Council and Women Travel Leaders. She has spent her career connecting conservation leaders with travel curators, forging value-driven partnerships that turn awareness into action for the places and people travel touches most.

    Panelists

    • Matthew Saus — Founder, The Manta Resort
    • Kirsten Dixon — Founder, Within the Wild (Tutka Bay Lodge)
    • Çağlar Gökgün — Founder, SGA Travel
    • Rigzin Lachic — Founder, Dolkhar Ladakh
    • Yeishan Goel — Founder, Himalayan Echos

    Panel 3

    Water, Waste and the Guest: Designing Lighter Stays

    Guests arrive with habits formed at home, and a stay can either repeat those habits or gently reshape them. This session asks what it takes for travellers to change how they behave during a stay, from the water they use to the energy they draw, the food they order and the waste they leave behind.

    Moderator

    Harriet Goudard, Equine-led advisor and facilitator

    Harriet is an equine-led advisor and Family and Nature Constellations facilitator who helps founders see the systems and patterns running beneath the surface of their businesses. That lens suits a conversation about water, waste and the guest, where the hardest questions often live in habit, expectation and behaviour as much as in infrastructure. An entrepreneur for more than two decades, she works with founders and creative leaders building regenerative businesses. Much of her practice unfolds outdoors among ancient trees, horses and the elements, where people reconnect with the living systems they depend on.

    Panelists

    • Arjun Sinsinwar — Chief Inspiration Officer, Antara Luxury River Cruises
    • Kimberly Rooijakkers — Founder, Boardwalk Boutique Hotel Aruba
    • Renee Kimball — Chief Steward, Tranquilo Bay
    • Christian Sea — Founder, Ngalung Kalla

    Panel 4

    The Real Economics of Keeping Tourism Local

    Who owns the land, who holds the jobs, and where does the money actually go? Five properties across four continents have built businesses where the answer runs local. From a Berber village in the High Atlas to a fishing town on Jamaica's west end, from the Sacred Valley to the foothills of the Annapurnas and the Egyptian desert, these operators have turned guest spending into schools, farms, artisan enterprises and household income that stays put. Expect specifics on structures, revenue shares and the trade-offs nobody puts in the brochure.

    Moderator

    Annie Combs, Co-Founder and CEO, ECPC Travel

    Annie co-founded ECPC Travel, a booking platform for eco-conscious, people-centred travel that she describes as an eco-friendly, socially conscious Expedia committed to decolonising tourism and giving destination communities autonomy and decision-making power. She founded it with two classmates from her environmental science master's at UC Santa Barbara's Bren School, after fieldwork in Ecuador showed them how larger commercial lodges were outcompeting the locally owned operators doing the better work. ECPC screens and qualifies independent providers worldwide so travellers can book with suppliers whose practices hold up.

    Panelists

    • Marcus Cotton — Tiger Mountain Pokhara
    • Paul Salmon — Rockhouse Hotel Jamaica
    • Joaquín Randall — El Albergue Ollantaytambo
    • Mike McHugo — Kasbah du Toubkal
    • Janane Saad — Long Range Travel, Egypt

    Day Two · Regeneration in Context

    Panel 5

    Can Regenerative Travel Scale Without Selling Out?

    Growth is the point at which most regenerative promises get tested. This panel looks at what happens when demand arrives, and whether a property or operator can grow visitor numbers, revenue and reach while holding the line on the things that made it worth visiting. The conversation covers overtourism and overcrowding, the pressure to fill beds in low season, how to grow without diluting community benefit, and where the honest ceiling sits for a place that cannot absorb more people. Speakers draw on their own decisions about when to expand, when to cap and what they have turned down.

    Moderator

    Patricia Serrano, Community Development Lead, Regenerative Travel

    Patricia is a luxury travel designer specialising in one-of-a-kind, off-the-beaten-path itineraries with an eco, sustainable and regenerative focus. She works directly with clients to shape trips around place, community and experience rather than checklist destinations. Her advisory work grows out of a decade-plus career in travel media. She has hosted for the Travel Channel, Local Now and Go Traveler, was voted Host of the Year by TripFilms.com and writes the travel blog FreshTraveler.com. That work has taken her into partnerships with the Tourism Authority of Thailand, the Mexican Tourism Board and the Delray Beach Marketing Cooperative, alongside brands including Rand McNally, USA Today and Honda.

    Panelists

    • Matt Starkey — Managing Director, Asilia Africa
    • Khalid Dilnawaz — Founder, Ekara Experience
    • Lidia Nicolau — Sales Manager, Expeditions by Twelve
    • Gerald Ami — Founder, Mauritius Conscious Travel

    Panel 6

    The Post-Trip Effect: Does Regenerative Travel Actually Change Guests?

    Regenerative travel promises transformation, yet the industry rarely follows guests home to see what stays with them. This panel brings together lodge founders and the advisors who send travellers their way to ask a harder question about impact. Do guests return with new habits, new loyalties and a deeper sense of responsibility, or does the feeling fade with the tan? Speakers share what they have seen in guest behaviour long after checkout, from repeat giving and advocacy to shifts in how people choose their next trip. They also look at how properties and advisors can design experiences, storytelling and follow-up that turn a moving stay into lasting change, and how the sector might begin to measure it honestly.

    Moderator

    Milo Putnam, Founder, Laro Travels

    Milo is a conservation storyteller and founder of Laro, a campaign-driven media company changing the narrative around wildlife travel through storytelling. With more than a decade of experience in conservation and environmental education, he brings a distinctive perspective to the intersection of wildlife, tourism and storytelling. Milo is also Communications Manager at Re:wild, a global conservation organisation working to protect and restore biodiversity alongside Indigenous Peoples and local communities.

    Panelists

    • Sarah Dusek — Founder, Few & Far
    • Valery Joanne Super — Founder, EERA LAB
    • Liesel van Zyl — Head of Positive Impact, Go2Africa
    • Claudia Chiriboga — CMO, Rebecca Adventure Travel
    • Dana Krauskopf — Founder, Hamanasi Resort

    Panel 7

    Farm Hospitality and the Future of Regenerative Land

    Across the world, some of the most compelling stays now begin in the soil. Hotels and lodges are restoring degraded land, reviving heritage crops, rewilding farmland and building food systems that feed guests, staff and surrounding communities. This panel explores how farm hospitality can become a genuine engine for regenerative agriculture, and what it takes to make that model work on the ground. Speakers share how they balance guest experience with the slow, unglamorous work of rebuilding soil health, water cycles and biodiversity.

    Moderator

    Samantha Shankman, Founder, Farm Hospitality

    Samantha is a journalist, trend forecaster and content creator focused on the future of travel, hospitality and our evolving relationship with land, food and place. Her background spans Business Insider, Skift, Vogue, Travel + Leisure and Afar, and she has built her career identifying emerging movements before they become mainstream. As the first reporter at Skift, she helped shape how the travel industry is covered today, reporting on major global shifts, interviewing CEOs of leading hospitality companies and contributing to the publication's trend forecasting. She founded Farm Hospitality, a growing global collection of farm hotels rooted in land, food and stewardship, and coined the term to define this fast-emerging category. Her Farm Hospitality audience has grown from around 1,500 to more than 65,000 followers in under a year, bringing together travellers and the founders, operators and investors building these places.

    Panelists

    • Amanda Harris — Head of Permaculture, Playa Viva
    • Fleur Huijskens — Owner, Sterrekopje Farm
    • Jannicke Haug Doksæter — Owner, Skåbu Fjellhotell
    • Barbara van Teeffelen — Owner, Keythorpe Hall
    • Luís Teixeira — Owner, Herdade da Cortesia
    • Remi Giromella — Director of Quality Control, The Datai Langkawi
    Explore Advisor Certification

    Voices from Gathering Grounds

    Meet the speakers

    Amanda Ho

    Hosted by

    Amanda Ho

    Amanda Ho is the Co-Founder and CEO of Regenerative Travel. She brings together independent hoteliers, travel advisors and practitioners to share the work behind tourism that restores ecosystems, supports local livelihoods and honours local cultures.

    Explore Advisor Certification

    About the recordings

    What is included?

    Travel Advisor Certification includes all seven Gathering Grounds panels and more than six hours of recorded operator conversations, alongside the six-week course, live sessions and verified credential.

    When will I receive access?

    Certified advisors receive Session Library access as part of their enrollment. The founding rate is $349, including the first year of certification.

    Is this a live event?

    No. Gathering Grounds took place on October 14–15, 2026. This page showcases its recorded panels, included with Advisor Certification. Live networking is not included in the recordings.

    How will I watch?

    Recordings are streamed through a private link. Watch at your own pace and return to the sessions whenever you like.

    I bought a Gathering Grounds ticket. Do I need certification for replays?

    No. Paid Gathering Grounds tickets already include panel replays. Certification adds the course, live sessions and verified credential.

    Travel Advisor Certification

    Keep the conversations. Put the lessons to work.

    The recorded panels, the six-week course and a verified credential, together in one certification. Founding enrollment is $349.

    Explore Advisor Certification

    Founding enrollment closes 28 February 2027