Giving Back, Giving Voice:regenerative tourism AS A WAY OF MAKING INVISIBLE GROUPS VISIBLE

Rapid social, economic and political changes have led to a rise in the global phenomenon of social problems, such as homelessness (Kusmer, 2002), with some suggesting that the increased interest in social problems has been a catalyst for social enterprise activities, which address social problems through the provision of social benefits (Lin et al., 2021). Approximately 2% of the world’s population is considered homeless (Chamie, 2020) and, in Wales, it is estimated that around 7% of the Welsh adult general population have lived experiences of homelessness (Grey & Woodfine, 2019). In response to these issues, new tourism paradigms have emerged, in particular, regenerative tourism, which seeks to act in the interests of the wider systems in which it functions; as opposed to sustainable tourism which has been criticised for placing tourism industry interests over the interests of host communities – thus regenerative tourism treats all stakeholders as equal partners in the quest to regenerate local economies for the well-being of local communities and the wider world (Ateljevic & Sheldon, 2022; Sheldon, 2022; Tomassini & Cavagnaro, 2020).