Héctor De Castro

Media & Speaking

Conversations on stage and on the record.

For interviews, keynotes, panels and expert commentary on regenerative luxury, verification and the future of luxury hospitality. Approved biographies and portraits are below.

Media and speaking enquiries Press kit
ITB Berlin Convention, Hospitality Track: Héctor De Castro shown on the main screen while seated with fellow panellists
ITB Berlin Convention, Hospitality Track, 5 March 2026.

Featured speaking

A selection of recent keynotes and panels.

  • 5 March 2026 · Berlin ITB Berlin Convention — Hospitality TrackKeynote and panel, “The Luxury We Are Leaving Behind: Why Regenerative Hospitality Is the Future”, with Prof. Alessandro Inversini and Dr Valentina Clergue (EHL Hospitality Business School); moderated by Yasemin Oruç (Hotelschool The Hague).
  • 2026 · Málaga Foro Iberoamericano de Turismo Sostenible — Museo Carmen ThyssenSpeaker.
  • 2025 · Honduras UN TourismPanellist, “El futuro de la hotelería boutique de lujo y ultra-lujo: regeneración y revenue” (The future of luxury and ultra-luxury boutique hospitality: regeneration and revenue).
  • 20–21 March 2024 · Cancún 1st Ibero-American Tourism Congress — sustainable, inclusive and fairPanellist.
  • 2024 · Cancún Cancún World FestKeynote.
  • Online Regenera Luxury webinar“Regenerative Wellness Operations in Hotels and Retreats: how luxury properties can turn wellbeing into measurable regeneration and profits”, in conversation with Kent Richards, founder of Wellness World Global and former Corporate Wellness Director at Six Senses.
Héctor De Castro seated at a speakers’ table at the Museo Carmen Thyssen in Málaga, beside a fellow speaker
Foro Iberoamericano de Turismo Sostenible, Málaga, 2026.
UN Tourism panel in Honduras, 2025, with Héctor De Castro seated among four panellists
UN Tourism, Honduras, 2025.
Seven panellists on stage at the 1st Ibero-American Tourism Congress 2024 in Cancún
1st Ibero-American Tourism Congress, Cancún, 2024.

In conversation

Working sessions and exchanges with industry and institutional leaders.

Héctor De Castro reviewing material on a tablet with Andrew Gibson and José Antonio Sáez at the Vancouver Yacht Club
Working session with Andrew Gibson and José Antonio Sáez, Vancouver Yacht Club, 2022.
Héctor De Castro with Professor Alessandro Inversini of EHL Hospitality Business School
With Prof. Alessandro Inversini, EHL Hospitality Business School — a colleague and collaborator.
Héctor De Castro with Glenn Manziuk, CEO of the World Sustainable Hospitality Alliance
With Glenn Manziuk, CEO, World Sustainable Hospitality Alliance.
Héctor De Castro signing documents at the council table of Kelowna City Hall, Canada, with Canadian and Kelowna flags behind
Kelowna City Hall, Canada, 2022 — signing with the Mayor in the context of a hotel investment project.

Featured coverage and articles

A selection of interviews, articles and mentions.

Interviews and bylines in

Institutional press coverage of Regenera Luxury is listed in its media and press room.

Topics for interviews and keynotes

  1. What regenerative luxury is — and what it is not
  2. Regeneration-washing and how to verify claims
  3. Why small and remote properties matter most
  4. Legacy as a measure of long-term asset value
  5. Luxury, culture and place identity
  6. Measuring regeneration across very different geographies
  7. World Regenerative Tourism Day: why tourism needs a shared date of accountability
  8. Open science in hospitality: publishing standards and definitions with DOIs

Languages: English and Spanish.

Press kit

Media biography (approx. 120 words)

Héctor De Castro is Founder & President of Regenera Luxury, an organisation that defines, measures and independently verifies regenerative performance in luxury hotels and retreats. A Spanish hospitality executive with more than twenty-five years of experience across Europe, the Middle East, South-East Asia and the Caribbean, he has worked in pre-openings, quality audits and food & beverage, and led European hotel technical-services companies with more than 300 employees. In 2022 he founded a non-profit in Playa del Carmen, Mexico, from which Regenera Luxury grew; it has since helped more than 100 young people advance their education. He is a professor at Universidad Anáhuac Cancún, a doctoral candidate in International Tourism and in Marketing & Communication, and holds a Global Executive MBA from IE Business School. He is the author of a 2026 working paper proposing a formal operational definition of regenerative luxury (doi:10.13140/RG.2.2.15449.07529), and the founder of World Regenerative Tourism Day, observed on 23 May.

Introduction for moderators (one sentence)

Héctor De Castro, Founder and President of Regenera Luxury, has spent more than twenty-five years inside luxury hospitality and now works on how the world’s finest hotels and retreats can grow their revenue while becoming richness generators for their communities and destinations.

Semblanza en español (aprox. 250 palabras)

Héctor De Castro · Fundador y Presidente de Regenera Luxury

Héctor De Castro es directivo, empresario e investigador. Su trabajo gira en torno a una pregunta: cómo pueden los mejores hoteles y destinos del mundo dejar sus territorios, culturas y comunidades mejor de lo que los encontraron, y demostrarlo con evidencias.

Con más de 25 años de trayectoria en Europa, Oriente Medio, el Sudeste Asiático y el Caribe, ha ocupado puestos de dirección general en empresas europeas de servicios técnicos para la industria hotelera, con más de 300 empleados y más de 100 millones de euros de facturación anual. Su vínculo con la hotelería sostenible nació a finales de los años noventa en el Sudeste Asiático, en contacto con grupos como Six Senses y Banyan Tree, donde se consolidó su visión de un lujo unido a la naturaleza, la cultura y el bienestar.

En 2021 se incorporó como profesor a la Universidad Anáhuac Cancún e inició su investigación doctoral. En 2022 fundó en Playa del Carmen (México) una organización sin ánimo de lucro dedicada a apoyar a comunidades locales y destinos turísticos, en especial aquellos con un patrimonio cultural singular. Desde entonces, la organización ha apoyado a más de 100 jóvenes en su formación —con recursos educativos, cursos, formación y mentoring, algunos reconocidos por la Universidad Anáhuac Cancún— y ha aportado más de 100.000 USD en recursos para formación profesional en Nepal, Bangladés, Bacalar y el estado de Veracruz. De ella nació Regenera Luxury, constituida después como empresa en Estados Unidos, para impulsar la transformación regenerativa de hoteles y destinos: desde el fortalecimiento financiero de los propios hoteles hasta la mejora de los ecosistemas, el apoyo a las comunidades locales y la puesta en valor del patrimonio cultural. Hoy Regenera Luxury está presente en más de 30 países. En 2026 publicó un documento de trabajo con una definición operativa formal del lujo regenerativo (DOI 10.13140/RG.2.2.15449.07529) y fundó el Día Mundial del Turismo Regenerativo (World Regenerative Tourism Day), que se celebra cada 23 de mayo.

Es candidato doctoral en Turismo Internacional, con una investigación sobre hoteles de lujo regenerativo, y en Comunicación, con una investigación sobre neuromarketing aplicado a la hotelería. Es Global Executive MBA por IE Business School, profesional certificado por GSTC y licenciado en Traducción Económico-Jurídica por la University of West London y la Universidad de Granada. Ha intervenido en ITB Berlín y en foros de ONU Turismo, su trabajo ha aparecido en Forbes y HOTELS Magazine, y colabora pro bono en proyectos educativos y comunitarios.

Please use “Héctor De Castro” and “Regenera Luxury” in full. A longer editorial biography is on the biography page.

Approved portrait of Héctor De Castro Download portrait (JPG) Download black-and-white portrait (JPG)

Credit: Héctor De Castro. Free for editorial use with credit.