Corporate Social Responsibility and Sustainability Practices of Top Hotel Chains Concerning SDGs and Sustainism

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) or corporate sustainability and responsibility (CS&R) is a widely discussed topic in business and economic literature. However, there is a lack of studies comparing the top-tier hotel chain’s sustainability practices with SDG-related CSR and sustainism. The current study aims to develop a comprehensive list of SDG-related CSR actions, CS&R actions, and sustainism themes. Then, it compares the CS&R practices of the TripAdvisor Certificate of Excellence winner 14 selected hotel chains with SDG-related CSR and sustainsim themes. First, using Scopus and Google Scholar databases, SDG-related CSR, CS&R actions, and sustainism-related actions are identified. Second, using qualitative content analysis of sustainability reporting of the CS&R websites of 14 selected hotel chains is evaluated. Third, whether the current CS&R actions outperform the SDG-related CSR or sustainism actions or whether a gap exists between expectation and current performance is uncovered. As an outcome, a three-layer pyramid is developed where the lower-level shows 14/14 selected TripAdvisor Certificate of Excellence winner hotel chains are in the mere CS&R situations, the middle level shows 10/14 hotel chains are SDG-related CSR era, and the peak of the pyramid shows 3-4/14 hotel chains are in the sustainism era. Although most hotel chains have implemented SDG-related CSR, many top-tier hotels should take urgent actions to implement sustainism themes.