The Importance of Community Perspectives on Hotel Community-Related CSR: A Position Paper

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this position paper is to present an opinion on the importance of understanding host community perspectives in any community-based corporate social responsibility initiative. A host community is essentially the consumer of any community-based CSR, yet they each have unique cultures, features, needs, and expectations, which may or may not fit a business’s CSR initiative, unless the community perspectives are accounted for prior to the implementation of the CSR project. Focusing on the hotel sector context, the paper develops its position by reviewing supporting literature and highlighting the outcomes of a qualitative case study that involved face-to face semistructured interviews with 15 local opinion leaders who represented several local communities. The paper concludes with a firmer opinion on its position, and it offers some of the implications of its findings.