Corporate social responsibility in the top Spanish hotel companies

Abstract

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) in tourism is particularly interesting given the fact that society is part of the service and companies should assume a responsibility with the places they are located in. Several studies analyse the reporting of CSR activities, however, there is modest research relating CSR practices in the hospitality industry. The purpose of this paper is to provide two case studies in the Spanish hospitality industry, Sol Meliá and NH, which are the only top hotel companies that offer information about their CSR practices in their web sites and Annual Reports. Although the tourism industry still has a long way to do in the reporting of CSR activities to become equal to other industries, in the two cases analysed a clear commitment to CSR matters it is observed within its various spheres of action.

Antecedents of CSR communication by hotels: The case of the Colombian Caribbean Region

“…Serra et al (2018) highlighted that a great deal of research in CSR in the hotel industry has focused on the content analysis of CSR reports but not on the antecedents of reporting. In that sense, researchers have analyzed, among others, the reports' content of hotel companies in Thailand (Bohdanowicz, 2007), India (Ferus-Comelo, 2014), Spain (Pérez & Rodríguez del Bosque, 2015), and Zimbabwe (Nyahunzvi, 2013); the reports of specific hotel chains such as Hilton International (Henderson, 2007), Scandic (Bohdanowicz & Zientara, 2008), NH Hotels and Meliá Hotels (Martos, 2011;Suárez, 2009) and Paradores (Martos, 2011); the reports of the world's leading hotel chains (Bohdanowicz & Zientara, 2009;De Grosbois, 2012;Holcomb et al, 2007;Rey-Maquieira et al, 2011) or the European ones (Font et al, 2012) and the information provided by Asian hotel chains specializing in luxury hotels (Cherapanukorn & Focken, 2014). Focusing on smaller hotel chains, Jenkins and Karanikola ( 2014) analyzed Dubai's hotel industry founding that hotel chains communicated their environmental policies and practices more frequently and in a more thorough manner than independent hotels did.…”