The Hotel Britomart Launches Auckland’s First Hotel-Led Regenerative Travel Experience / By Felicity Van Rysbergen

The Hotel Britomart in Auckland has launched its new regenerative travel experience, Nourishing Nature. The initiative immerses guests in New Zealand’s native bush, promoting sustainability and environmental stewardship.

The Nourishing Nature experience caters to the growing number of eco-luxury travellers mindful of tourism’s environmental and social impacts. The half-day, four-hour excursion takes guests to Velskov, a regenerative native forest farm located 25 km west of Auckland’s central business district.

The program includes harvesting native herbs, learning about local traditions, and understanding how reforesting native bush supports New Zealand’s biodiversity.

Guests will travel by EV to the Waitakere Ranges, where they will forage and taste traditional native ingredients used by Auckland’s best restaurants and their significance for local customs and culture. Guests can also plant a native tree as a living reminder of their visit to New Zealand, contributing to forest restoration and sequestering carbon for the future.

New Zealand has lost approximately 75 per cent of its original native forest cover. Velskov aims to make native forest food farming commercially viable to encourage the return of land to forest cover.

Clinton Farley, General Manager of The Hotel Britomart, emphasised tourism’s role in conservation: “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.

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.”

thehotelbritomart.com/nourishing-nature