Tourism has changed dramatically since the rise of online booking services and homestay platforms.
As an extension of this DIY travel revolution, eco and budget-conscious consumers are now seeking out more holistic and enriching travel experiences by forging deeper connections with people and places.
According to Tourism Australia's Future of Global Tourism Demand report, published in November 2022, The Great Disconnect of the COVID-19 era has been surpassed by a period of Great Reconnect.
Of the close to 24,000 people surveyed, one in six global travellers were characterised as seeking reconnection, relaxation, fun and escape with family and friends; mental and physical health restoration through nature-based activities; or exploration of a new destinations and cultures as a reason for travel.
Sustainability, Indigenous and inclusive tourism were also described as emerging priorities for the industry.
Diane Dredge is director of Tourism CoLab, a social enterprise think tank researching how visitors can give back to local communities and the environment.
She says the pandemic has accentuated a desire for "slow travel" as people re-evaluate their life priorities and relationship with work.
Data from Tourism Research Australia's National Visitor Survey in 2022 indicates a 13 per cent increase in holiday trips lasting more than eight nights since 2019.
"There's a huge shift that's going on in the marketplace, and people are wanting to connect," Ms Dredge says.
"They're really looking for experiences that can reconnect them with nature, have authentic engagement with local people and experience the culture and the special qualities of local places."
She says a "regenerative tourist" is typically someone mindful of their carbon footprint and local spend.
Such altruistic travellers may engage with volunteering at a local festival, have breakfast at a social enterprise cafe or purchase local products from a makers market.
"It's all about giving back and not just taking and exploiting," Ms Dredge says, as opposed to just being another anonymous visitor washing through a town.
Deeper connections
Leanne Flaherty, from Sale in Victoria, began volunteering at the Garma Festival, in north-east Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory, after answering an urgent call-out for volunteers to set up a "pop-up" library in 2014.
"As a volunteer at Garma you get to meet a huge cross-section of people from all ages and backgrounds," Ms Flaherty says.
"Most people are there because they have a desire to learn more about the customs and culture of the local people.
"Some are lucky enough to be welcomed into Yolngu families as a brother or sister. This allows an even deeper experience."
Volunteers are provided with bedding and their own tents as well as all meals.
Ms Flaherty says volunteering is as exhausting as it is rewarding, but had led to opportunities she would never have had as a regular tourist.
She camped under the stars with Yolngu elders and says the best part of the day was sitting around the campfire sharing laughs and drinking tea.
After four years of volunteering, Ms Flaherty was offered a paid role on the Garma Festival crew, with an offer for her airfares to be paid.
"I've made lifelong friends from the experiences as volunteers often return, local Yolngu become your new family and crew members become colleagues," she says.
"The transition from volunteer to crew has been a real 'moral' dilemma for me as I never intended to get anything out of the experience other than the experience."
The exchange economy
Ms Dredge, who works mainly across Victoria and Tasmania, says bartering, trading and exchange can be part of the regenerative tourism model.
She says housing affordability, cost-of-living pressures, a growing culture of nomadic, itinerant contract workers and singles on limited budgets have inspired an "exchange economy".
Referencing the "WOOFer" tradition of volunteering on farms, she says there's a history of providing visitors with free accommodation in exchange for their contribution to a local community.
From the billeting of artists-in-residence running workshops, to homestays for volunteers working on community-recovery projects, Ms Dredge says the currency of social connection has great value now.
"We're looking at a much more diverse economy of exchange rather than it just being about economic value," she says, of the skills that visitors could bring to remote areas.
"It's actually up to the local communities to figure out how visitors can give back and provide them with local opportunities, whether it's through donations or volunteer work or just being good visitors."
Comparing current socioeconomic dynamics to times in history when itinerant workers drifted from town to town seeking bed and board, Ms Dredge believes many rural households have guest accommodation they can activate.
"In times of great disruption, people become very creative in the solutions that they build," she says.
"There will be many people thinking about how they can enter into this broader economy of exchange."
Matchmaking platforms
Recognising that millions of dollars were going to international booking platforms each year, Andrew Keast co-founded Wayfairer.au.
The regenerative tourism booking platform matches social and environmentally minded tourists with alternative accommodation and tourism experiences.
"We set up Wayfairer as a co-operative, a community-owned entity where 100 per cent of the booking fee is re-invested back into the community," he says.
Mr Keast says the "ecosystem" of stakeholder members have a say in marketing the region and how fees are re-invested back into local communities.
With consumers becoming much more discerning about the legacy of their spend, he says similar co-operatives looking at community solutions to problems are emerging around the world.
"We did some market research last year that uncovered … a growing trend of people wanting to participate in the community," Mr Keast says.
"They want to plant trees or walk on country with Indigenous elders or pick berries at the local organic farm, or go to a sourdough cooking class."
He says the fledgling Wayfairer website aims to navigate visitors to a much richer and deeper connection with the communities they visit.
Work-life balance
With the pandemic inspiring a global explosion of digital nomads and itinerant singles working remotely, Ms Dredge predicts a future of more people on a permanent working holiday.
She cites the laptop-enabled jetsetting swarms of digital nomads working poolside from the banana lounges of Bali and Portugal as indicative of a generation accustomed to a more transient working lifestyle.
"The challenges we're facing have triggered many people's internal processes of where they belong and where do they want to steward," Ms Dredge says.
"I think we can expect a lot more migration to happen in different directions."
Can't travel? You can still be a regenerative tourist
For those grounded by family commitments, she says it's entirely possible to become a "regenerative tourist" in one's own backyard.
"Regenerative tourism is all about reconnecting and regenerating ourselves through giving back to nature and the community, so we don't actually have to travel very far to integrate it into our everyday lives," Ms Dredge says.
"Be a visitor for a day, do things that you don't normally do," she says.
"Discover something about your community that you never knew before."