Corporate Social Responsibility in the Tourism Industry

Since the mid-1990s, the concept of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) started to emerge and be applied in different industry sectors. CSR arises from several issues: for example the businesses’ need to gain and retain consumer trust and the awareness that companies should take their responsibility for the impacts their activities cause on environment and society. CSR is therefore based on the concept of “triple bottom line”, which replaces the financial bottom line and implies that businesses are responsible for the environmental, social and economic effects they produce. This chapter clarifies the meaning and implication of CSR; explains the role of CSR in building and retaining consumer trust and, finally, explores the state of the art of CSR diffusion in tourism, highlighting the main benefits it brings to the tourism industry and the issues met by tourism companies, in particular by small- and medium-sized enterprises. The analysis points out that although CSR has a positive influence on consumer trust, efficiency, tourism product quality and business competitiveness, its implementation in the tourism industry, and especially in tourism SMEs, is limited by lack of awareness and knowledge and by high investments needed to implement an appropriate action plan.