Bioeconomy and Social Responsibility in The Sustainable Hotel Industry

Abstract

The aim of this article is to investigate strategies and practices of bioeconomy implemented by hotels in Romania in the context of increasing area and scale of corporate social responsibility initiatives worldwide. After presenting the conceptual framework necessary for the present investigation and selecting the most relevant papers from the literature, the research focuses on Romania's experience through: statistical analyzes, the investigation of hotel websites regarding social responsibility and bioeconomy practices and a semiquantitative study having as a research tool the individual semi-structured interview with hotels representatives. The Romanian market underscores relevant contrasts between four and five star hotels and the others categories. Hotels in the first category, often belonging to international chains, benefit from the strategies of sustainable development and social responsibility within the group, in contrast with other hotels. The investigation concludes that, as long as social responsibility continues to have a voluntary character, there will be a limited number of best practices as regards developing bioeconomy in the Romanian hotel industry. Consequently, we propose the introduction of legislative measures to stimulate all companies, regardless of size, to report non-financial information, as well as raising awareness and education in the direction of promoting the bioeconomy.

Bioeconomy-based tourism: A new concept responding to the support of bioeconomy

“…For this reason, the overlap of the mentioned forms and concepts of tourism is evident and mutually complementary. Baicu et al (2019) mention the link between BE and sustainable hospitality. In particular, they mention accommodation facilities that have various initiatives to protect the environment and increase tourists' awareness of environmental issues.…”

“…In order to include tourism in a country under BE-based tourism, it is necessary that the tourism is provided in rural areas (with an emphasis on forest and open-landed environment) by doing outdoor activities, nature reserves activities (natural environment related services), etc. Within the concept of BE-based tourism, the main issue is to use nature resources efficiently (but with economic accent), minimize their waste, and ensure their renewability (similarly to Baicu et al, 2019). Pollution is limited to the degree that natural systems can cope with.…”

“…The connection between tourism and BE has not yet been published in the scientific literature in detail and in depth. Baicu et al (2019) mention the example of sustainable hospitality industry.…”

PERFORMANCE AND CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY IN SMEs

“…Only a small minority of research publications fail to cover the subject, according to a literature review. In the decision-making process, most institutional investors consider in addition to financial criteria, aspects specific to cultural diversity, relations with civil society, environmental risks, business ethics and corporate governance (Baicu, Oehles-Sincai, State & Popescu, 2019). Proposing a correlation between competitiveness, human resources, productivity, business opportunities in terms of market and CSR, the contributions of P. Drucker (1984) are noted.…”

The Green Hotel Knowledge Towards Consumer Behavior Intention: Empirical Model Testing

“…However, guidelines called the ASEAN Green Hotel Standard had been issued for proper economic cooperation. Hotel care currently advised to undergo eco-certification and environmental management standards based on ISO 14001 [4][5][6].…”