The first international awards dedicated exclusively to regenerative luxury and ultra-luxury hospitality name their inaugural winners: properties in 17 countries that have shown, with verified evidence, that luxury can leave a place better than it found it.
By Héctor de Castro, Founder & President, Regenera Luxury · 15 October 2026
Every luxury hotel will soon have to answer one question: what does your presence leave behind?
For most of its history, our industry has been judged by what guests can see — the view, the suite, the service. When we launched the Regenera Luxury Hospitality Awards at ITB Berlin in March, we set out to judge what usually stays invisible: whether a property restores the forests, waters, communities and cultures around it. And we made one promise. Regeneration would have to be proven, not narrated.
Two weeks ago we announced the finalists. Today, it is my privilege to announce the winners.
We kept our promise, and the numbers show it. We received 164 nominations. Each property submitted around 100 evidence documents, and around 30% of all evidence was excluded or down-weighted for low credibility. Only 48 nominations — 29% — reached the final stage. The winners stood out within that already demanding group.
They come from the Peruvian Amazon and the Swiss Jura, from Costa Rica’s Central Valley and India’s Western Ghats, from Bali, Kenya and the Sinai coast. Global brands stand beside four-suite independents, all measured against exactly the same criteria. Together, they show that regeneration is no longer a niche within luxury. It is becoming its standard.
The Regenera Luxury Journal — Special Awards Edition
Every winner, featured in depth, in today’s special edition — distributed in more than 150 countries to over 50,000 investors, developers, hoteliers and high-end travellers.
Read the flip edition of the Special Awards Edition →
The 2026 winners
This year we confer 23 awards across the four pillars of the Regenera Luxury Criteria, one Ultra-Luxury award by invitation and four RL Distinctions.
Regenerative Leadership
| Award | Winner | Country |
| Regenerative Luxury Leader of the Year | André Cheminade, General Manager, Hôtel des Horlogers | Switzerland |
| Regenerative Leadership Index | Hôtel des Horlogers | Switzerland |
| Regenerative Luxury Branded Hotel of the Year | Six Senses Vana | India |
| Regenerative Luxury Independent Boutique Hotel of the Year | Ulaman | Indonesia |
| Regenerative Luxury Pre-Opening of the Year | Four Seasons Resort Dominican Republic at Tropicalia | Dominican Republic |
Governance
| Award | Winner | Country |
| Best Regenerative Governance & Data Transparency | Maden Al Rawda Hotel | Saudi Arabia |
| Supply Chain Traceability & Local Value Creation | Desa Eko | Indonesia |
| Regenerative Luxury Wine Estate of the Year | Santa Rita | Chile |
Environment
| Award | Winner | Country |
| Water Stewardship & Net-Positive Pathway | Waldorf Astoria Kuwait | Kuwait |
| Circularity Champion | Finca Rosa Blanca | Costa Rica |
| Biodiversity & Landscape Regeneration Leader | Refugio Amazonas | Peru |
| Regenerative Architecture of the Year | Suitree | Costa Rica |
| Design & Adaptive Reuse of the Year | Haltia Lake Lodge | Finland |
| Protected Area Partnership of the Year | Mt. Plaisir Estate Hotel | Trinidad and Tobago |
| Blue Tourism of the Year | Basata | Egypt |
Wellness, Culture & Guest Experience
| Award | Winner | Country |
| Staff Wellbeing & Human Development Leader | Bentwood Inn | United States |
| Cultural Heritage & Community Partnership Excellence | Hotel 47 | Italy |
| Best Guest Participation in Regeneration | Tambopata Research Center | Peru |
| Best Wellness Experience | Fivelements Ubud | Indonesia |
| Regenerative Thermal & Healing Waters of the Year | Terme Sveti Martin | Croatia |
| Regenerative Longevity & Human Flourishing Retreat of the Year | Dharana at Shillim | India |
| Regenerative Community Impact of the Year | Enkopiro Camp | Kenya |
| Quiet Luxury of the Year | Desa Hay | Indonesia |
Regenerative ultra-luxury: by invitation only
The highest tier of hospitality carries the greatest influence on guests, investors and our industry — and therefore the greatest responsibility. Its awards are conferred by invitation only. Our experts identify properties at this level and review them against the same Regenera Luxury Criteria, to confirm that exceptional service goes hand in hand with measurable positive impact.
| Award | Winner | Country |
| Ultra-Luxury Boutique Hotel of the Year — Regenerative Heritage | Kat Florence Hotel | Canada |
RL Distinctions
An RL Distinction recognises performance that came close to the winning standard. This year, four properties receive one:
- Prakriti, Nepal — Circularity Champion
- Kathoni, India — Cultural Heritage & Community Partnership Excellence
Five stories behind the results
Numbers tell us who won. These stories tell us why it matters.
Dharana at Shillim, India. A 2,500-acre estate in the Western Ghats, regreened from barren land with more than one million trees. Here, longevity is treated as a relationship between people and a living landscape.
Ulaman, Indonesia. Rammed earth, bamboo and reclaimed timber in the Balinese jungle, with its own hydroelectric generation. An independent retreat proving that design and regeneration can be the same gesture.
Tambopata Research Center, Peru. Deep in the Peruvian Amazon, guests do not just observe the rainforest. They take part in the research that protects it.
Kat Florence Hotel, Canada. Four suites in Elora, and proof that heritage ultra-luxury is a question of care, not scale.
Desa Hay, Indonesia. Six adults-only villas in Bali, where privacy and a deep bond with the local community define a luxury that never needs to raise its voice.
Regenerative Luxury Leader of the Year: André Cheminade
In a valley where precision is a way of life, André Cheminade has shown that a luxury hotel can be engineered for the place it stands in, not only for the guests it receives.
As General Manager of Hôtel des Horlogers, the Audemars Piguet hotel in Switzerland’s Vallée de Joux, he leads a 50-room property designed by Bjarke Ingels Group to follow the slope of the valley. It meets Minergie-Eco requirements, runs on rooftop solar, bottles the valley’s own spring water and gives part of every bottle sold to the Parc Jura Vaudois. Its kitchen works with local producers and its own vegetable garden.
His peers had already noticed: the European Hotel Managers Association gave him its Best Practices award for 2023, which honours ESG leadership in hotel management. This year, Hôtel des Horlogers also earned the highest verified score in the Regenerative Leadership Index. He has turned a landmark of haute horlogerie into a landmark of regenerative hospitality, with the same discipline the valley’s watchmakers bring to their craft.
How the winners were chosen
In a market crowded with green claims, we designed these awards to be hard to win. No result rests on a vote, a reputation or a well-told story. Every nomination went through three stages:
- Eligibility and compliance. Authorised by the owner or operator, above a minimum completeness threshold, and screened for inconsistencies and greenwashing risk.
- Evidence-weighted scoring. Each document classified as self-declared, documented or third-party verified, and weighted by its credibility and the scale of impact it demonstrates.
- Expert integrity validation. Regenera Luxury’s technical experts, on the recommendation of the Advisory Board, reviewed every result — to verify, not to vote. Every reviewer signed a conflict-of-interest declaration.
The standard behind every score is the operational definition of regenerative luxury I published in 2026 (DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.15449.07529). The Regenera Luxury Criteria turn that definition into verifiable indicators. The Awards turn those indicators into recognition.
With gratitude
Awards like these are only as credible as the people behind them, and I owe them my thanks.
To our Board of Advisors, for the independence, rigour and generosity of judgement they brought to every recommendation, and for holding us to the standard we promised.
To the Regenera Luxury technical team — our IT experts and evaluators who read, classified and weighed hundreds of documents, and the colleagues across our regions who supported every nominee through the process. Their care is the reason these results can be trusted.
To the editorial team of The Regenera Luxury Journal, who turned evidence into stories worth reading, and to every partner and collaborator who helped carry the Awards to hotels in five continents.
And to the hotel teams — general managers, finance, sustainability and marketing leads, owners and staff — who opened their operations to scrutiny. Gathering this evidence was demanding work. You did it because you believe, as we do, that luxury is evolving.
What comes next
A Regenera Luxury award is not a finish line. It is a public, verifiable starting point.
- Official emblems and international media benefits for Winners and RL Distinction recipients.
- A pathway to RL certification. For many properties, this recognition is the first step towards Regenera Luxury Certification and the RLP regenerative hotels software.
- The 2027 Awards edition. Next year introduces Dark Sky Stewardship & Nightscape Regeneration, recognising properties that protect the night sky and the life that depends on it.
The winners of this first edition have done something harder than telling a good story: they have proven their impact, document by document. They show that the most exceptional hospitality in the world can give back more than it takes — to the land, to the people who work there and to the communities that host it. That is the luxury of the future: balance, time, space and legacy.
To every winner, every RL Distinction recipient and every finalist: congratulations, and thank you for showing our industry what is possible.
Héctor de Castro
Founder & President, Regenera Luxury
The full story is in The Regenera Luxury Journal — Special Awards Edition.
Read it page by page in the flip edition and zoom into any page.
