The Hotel Britomart has launched a new offering for guests looking to travel lightly and give back to the community with a new regenerative travel experience by taking guests into New Zealand’s beautiful native bush for an immersive sensory adventure.
Catering to the growing number of travellers considering their trip's environmental and social impacts, the four-hour visit to a ‘native forest farm’ teaches guests to harvest native herbs and plant ingredients and educates them on local traditions and reforesting native bush.
The Hotel Britomart has partnered with Velskov, a regenerative New Zealand native forest farm located in Parau, to offer the experience.
Guests travel in an electric van for 45 minutes to Velskov’s native forest farm. There, they learn how to forage native foods, the taste qualities and traditional uses of native herbs and plants, and local customs.
They also plant a native tree to restore the forest, as New Zealand has lost around 75 percent of its original native forest cover. Velskov has aimed to make native forest food farming commercially viable and encouraged the return of land to forest cover.
“The tourism industry has an important part to play in conservation and the impacts on local communities, especially as we head towards New Zealand’s goal of reaching net-zero carbon emissions by 2050,” said Clinton Farley, general manager of The Hotel Britomart.
“Regenerative travel is an important space for us, and we see our partnership with Velskov as an opportunity to help our guests learn more about sustainability and give back in a small way to the communities they are visiting.”
He hoped that by participating in this tour, guests would gain a better understanding of the importance of regenerating native forests and take that knowledge home.
