The Project 2025

After a brief hiatus The Regeneration Collection’s annual competition, The Project, will be returning in 2025. We are convinced that the next generation of hospitality leaders will play an active role in shaping the industry’s regenerative future. That’s why one of our key initiatives is ‘The Regeneration Project’. An International event for Bachelor and Master students in the fields of Hospitality, Conservation & Architecture. Each team will create a regenerative hospitality concept and design accommodation according to the highest sustainability standards. All with the aim to actively restore the local environment and its communities and create a unique guest experience.

During the 10 week program, students will follow a range of masterclasses and receive coaching from some of the best experts in the field. Upon completion, their final concepts will be showcased for governments, tourism experts, property owners, developers and investors at leading industry events, in order to get the best ideas implemented.

The Case

Goal: Create a regenerative hospitality concept which could be operational by 2028.
Location: Teams can choose their ideal location, preferably in their country or geographical region. Develop a proposition which fits the concept of regeneration and contributes to both the natural environment and the local (indigenous) communities. Focus on 3 of the known SDG’s.
Accommodation type: Teams can choose their lodging type, however it needs to be able to accommodate a minimum of 25 guests.
F&B: The hotel should have at least 1 Food & Beverage proposition.
Operations: The operations should be focused on providing an exciting guest experience (and allow them to contribute), it should have a positive environmental footprint and maximize employee wellbeing. At the same time the hotel operations need to be able to sustain itself and thus be profitable.

The Team

Participants: A maximum number of 5 teams will get the opportunity to participate in this year’s Regeneration project.

Teams: Each team should consist of a minimum of 3 and a maximum of 5 students.

At least 3 students should have a hotel (hospitality) management background (of whom one should be the team captain) and each team should have at least 1 architecture (or technical) student. Other team members can be specialists relevant to your concept

(E.g.: Tourism, agriculture, forestry, marine biology, conservation, etc.). All team members should be registered as a student at the time of sign up.

Each team should have at least 1 mentor, who is teaching at one of the participating hotel / hospitality management schools / technical universities.

The Dream

Design: Based on your concept, develop a first design of the property, both exterior & interior

Materials & operations: Critical in the development of a regenerative hospitality concept will be the choice of materials and the use and generation of scarce resources (incl. energy, water, etc.) during operations. For this stage, the emphasis will be on finding and/or developing new solutions to ensure a truly positive footprint with regards to the environment and local communities

Operations: Design and develop the operations of the property, including Room operations, F&B, Housekeeping and any special propositions, services or characteristics relevant to your concept

Feasibility: Using the above, your feasibility study will need to be done and will play a significant role in the final evaluation of your design

The Idea

Situation analysis: Given the challenge is to come up with a regenerative hospitality concept, the research phase is crucial to familiarize yourself with:

Tourism dynamics, needs, opportunities & challenges in your country
Existing hotel concepts, architecture & (operational) solutions
Latest developments in the area of sustainability

Location choice: Define the most relevant location and explore local environment, culture, requirements and possibilities

Building the coalition: Identify relevant partners, stakeholders and experts that can contribute

Concept development:
Develop a concept, with a clear theme which will serve as the anchor for your property design. The concept should be an integral part of both the design and the operations of the property

The Pitch

Report: The final report should be a maximum of 15 pages (excl. appendix)
Pitch: All participating teams will get the opportunity to pitch and have a booth at the live event, where you’ll be amongst leaders of the regenerative travel movement that are looking to be inspired by the next generation of talent and their solutions. This pitch will be held in an Arena setting around your prototype.

Key deliverables:

• Report
• 3D design animation & physical model / prototype
• Pitch (15 minutes + 15 minutes Q&A)
  Each will receive two reports of past projects as a
  reference.

The Impact

Roadshow: The participating teams will be invited to at least 3 major industry events to present their concept, design and learnings. Audiences will consists of a wide variety of interested parties, including:

• Investors in sustainable & regenerative hospitality
• Hospitality leaders from sustainable & regenerative properties
• Industry experts (developers, owners, etc.), destination management teams
  and politicians dedicated to more sustainable tourism

Pilot selection:
Partners with existing properties (or ones under development) will get the opportunity to collaborate with participants to trial solutions through pilot projects
Knowledge sharing:
All knowledge & learnings will be actively shared with our industry partners and participating schools as part of their curriculum and as input for participating teams in the following year.