100 Impacts: Travelling with Purpose
Overview
On World Tourism Day 2025, we reflect on purpose-led travel. Travel can create positive ripples, and inspire change for guests, the local community, and the environment alike. Through our Stay for Good programme, our Greater Good Grants, and our Rewilding programme, we continue our mission of embracing the environment and empowering people.
- 22/09/2025
- 5 mins
On World Tourism Day 2025, we are reflecting on our journey so far, its impact, and continue to imagine a future in which travel is a source of renewal – protecting nature, celebrating culture, and helping communities thrive. This vision lies at the heart of our mission. From our rewilding initiatives, which help restore local ecosystems, to our Stay for Good programme, which champions experiential and responsible activities, we empower guests with meaningful opportunities to make travel a force for good.
Travelling with purpose
Our Stay for Good programme is rooted in our belief that tourism should create lasting value, both for guests and the communities they visit. Launched in 2023, it highlights immersive and authentic experiences across our properties, embracing cultural heritage, sustaining local traditions, and creating new economic opportunities.
Stay for Good at Garrya Nijo Castle in Kyoto, Japan, for example, offers the chance to connect with the city’s cultural heart in a variety of meaningful ways. Visit a temple to learn the practice of zazen – seated meditation guided by a Zen master – and reap the benefits to body, mind, and spirit. Or you could step into living history by visiting a traditional thatched-roof home and joining in the ancient craft of layering susuki grass, a ritual unchanged since the Jomon period more than 2,000 years ago.
Visit Banyan Tree Mayakoba in Mexico and Stay for Good encounter the natural and cultural riches of the Riviera Maya. Take a boat journey through Mayakoba’s canals and waterways, where you will encounter birds, turtles, and even crocodiles, while a knowledgeable local guide teaches you about the fragile habitats that make this place extraordinary. If you are keen to stay on dry land, you can create with purpose at our recycled paper workshop, where an introduction to the art of papermaking will leave you with a handmade memento that reflects both creativity and care.
At Vietnam’s Angsana Lang Co, Soul Healing Corner — a collaboration with the Hope Centre — supports people with disabilities through financial independence, social connection, and craft. You can shop for beautiful handmade pieces at Angsana Gallery or join hands-on workshops led by artisans, transforming recycled materials into keepsakes. Among the artisans is Ms. Tuyen, who once struggled to find stable work due to her disability. Through Hope Centre and Angsana Lang Co, she trained in traditional crafts, rebuilt her confidence, and now takes pride in creating work that sustains her family. Her story reflects the true spirit of Stay for Good: travel that improves lives and restores hope.
Renewing nature, empowering communities
Rewilding gives nature the freedom to reclaim spaces on her own terms, restoring ecosystems and biodiversity and allowing wildlife to return and thrive. We believe rewilding is about more than healing landscapes—it is about inspiring and empowering people to become active stewards of the natural world.
To mark our 30th anniversary in 2024, we launched the Rewilding Banyan Fund, pledging USD $1 from every direct booking to rewilding projects worldwide. Working in partnership with rewilding specialists SUGi, the Fund represents our long-term commitment to creating greener, healthier spaces for generations to come.
Our focus has been on pocket forests – small, high-density plantings that transform overlooked spaces into thriving ecosystems. This vision came to life at Laguna Phuket, where in 2023 we transformed a former tin mine into a green space reminiscent of the virgin rainforest that once cloaked the island.
Working with the pioneering Miyawaki Method, developed by Japanese ecologist Professor Akira Miyawaki, we planted three pocket forests using over 7,500 trees and shrubs from 84 native species, sourced from Phuket’s last remaining rainforest at Khao Phra Thaeo National Park. The project was a community effort. Local children, including those from Step-Up International Laguna Kindergarten, one of our Stay for Good initiatives, took part in the planting, learning the value of stewardship firsthand.
Laguna Phuket is just the beginning. With numerous rewilding projects planned across our properties, we are continuing our mission to restore nature. The Rewilding Banyan Fund is part of our broader suite of sustainability initiatives, which began with the Green Imperative Fund in 2001 and includes the Greater Good Grants, introduced in 2020, which provide vital support to communities and environments in need. In China, Greater Good Grants have gone towards protecting migratory birds and connecting a town to a clean water supply.
To explore more on rewilding and conservation, read our stories on Laguna Phuket’s pocket forests, Banyan Tree Bintan’s conservation initiatives, and how rewilding can enhance wellbeing. You can also discover more Stay for Good experiences around the world, or immerse yourself in other cultural connections or culinary journeys that await you when you stay with us.