Aligning stakeholders in a common purpose
Every year in Australia, over $150m is paid to international accommodation booking platforms, with the vast majority of that money disappearing offshore. We have seen the impact of this model in towns and neighbourhoods across Australia, with the hollowing out of communities and increasing unaffordability of housing.
Wayfairer disrupts this extractive booking model. It's a non-profit platform that enables booking revenue to stay in Australia’s communities - creating jobs, catalysing investment, and promoting tourism destinations through sustainable, locally-led initiatives. Wayfairer’s approach creates an alignment between stakeholders, where everyone is pulling in the same direction - and that can empower local communities to promote authentic, fair and sustainable tourism.
Building regenerative tourism
Community projects are at the heart of Wayfairer. They are the projects that have been chosen by their communities and must fall within the following three themes.
Wayfairer oversees the funding of community projects. It provides an independent mechanism to ensure that funds are being distributed in tune with community expectations and that project selection and impact reporting criteria are being met.
Food
Regenerative agricultural and local food system projects that produce benefits to environments and communities.
People
Sustainable work and circular economy projects to foster regenerative economies and resilient communities.
Environment
Regenerative projects that nurture native wildlife, biodiversity and ecosystems at landscape scale.
Investing in local communities
Regenerative tourism is about community building. Our aim is to help communities to realise the value of their assets, by returning capital earned from those assets back to the community. This is done through a staged approach with a focus on guest, host and community participation.
Step #1
Communities choose projects for approval by local representatives
Step #2
Hosts list their accommodation & experiences
Step #3
Guests visit region & 50% of booking fees are paid to projects
Step #4
Community run projects and report on their impacts
Collaborating around shared values
We believe tourism can be regenerative - that it can be a powerful model for change, building community capacity and wealth. In line with global cooperative principles, our values are formed to support this goal.
Trusting
We seek transparency, accountability, and democratic decision making - with community at the heart of what we do
Understanding
We foster collaboration and cooperation across our members to build Wayfairer's services, training & support
Inspiring
We promote our shared purpose and seek benefits anchored in local economic and social participation
Show your support
We're building Wayfairer from the ground up - and need to gather all the support we can as we gather momentum. It's easy to show that you want Wayfairer to take root across Australia, just click through and sign up to Join Our Community. It's a really simple way to vote with your virtual feet...so we can invest in our communities.