Communicating corporate social responsibility in the tourism industry.

Abstract: Over time the tourism industry has been expanding at an exponential rate to the point that around 1 billion people will have travelled during the year of 2012 (UNWTO, 2012b). This massive amount of people has allowed for the degradation and destruction of multiple touristic destinations around the world. The great numbers of tourist have also negatively impacted the social and economic aspects of the touristic destinations. The current destructive path of the tourism industry has prompted the development of more sustainable and responsible types of tourism. One of the key players in the tourism industry that could address the topics of sustainable and responsible tourism is the tour operator. A path that tour operators can follow to address this destructive path of tourism is through corporate responsibility. Most of the other industries are in more advanced stages of approaching corporate responsibility while the tourism industry is still within the good practice phase of corporate responsibility. This aim of this study is to analyse what a group of tour operators are reporting concerning corporate responsibility. The questions focus on the different aspects the tour operators are communicating concerning their corporate responsibility and does this corporate responsibility communication add value to the consumer. The study shows that the tour operators are not exactly communicating their responsibility similar across the board, which shows the communication fragmentation among the tour operators. Most the tour operators mention corporate responsibility through the lens of sustainable or responsible tourism. Through this that the tour operators discuss their sustainable tourism or responsible tourism could possibly lead to adding consumer value to thetourists.