Corporate social responsibility in hospitality industry in UK

Hospitality industry in UK is a multimillion dollar industry. This industry serves millions of people all over the globe and is expected to grow to a great extent over the coming years. The hospitality industry forecasts around 1580 million tourists by 2020 to arrive in UK (Price water house Coopers, 2006).

Promoting corporate social responsibility in the hospitality industry

As a result the hospitality industry in UK has to put pressure and pay attention to sustainability. Non-governmental organizations, individual tourists and governments have started changing their perceptions. They are now concerned about organizations responsibility towards society and environment. They also show concern on the extent of responsibility that hospitality industry have with respect to improving the future outlook (Price water house Coopers, 2006). Therefore the hotel owners are driven to a situation to show concern towards environment and society in order to satisfy their tourists and attract investors (Lewis, 2003). With ever increasing operation costs in this industry , sustainability has become one of the most critical issues that hospitality industry in UK today face. As a result, there has been an increasing awareness towards adaptation of corporate social responsibility practices by the hospitality industry. Grant Thornton, in a report that it published in the year 2007, has identified that about 94% of the 350 FTSE companies in UK publish Corporate Social Responsibility articles every year. 88% of these organizations have exclusive programs to exhibit corporate social responsibility. Another finding is that organizations today no longer consider corporate social responsibility as a secondary or peripheral activity. But have started considering corporate social responsibility as one of their primary activities.

Sustainability

Corporate social responsibility with respect to the hospitality industry is associated with the idea of offering sustainability (Rupp et.al, 2006). Many hotels have started adapting corporate social responsibility initiatives. A lot of them hotels are more serious about it and do it exclusively in order to comply with government regulations and attract new customers. The following are some of the initiatives adapted by hospitality sector in UK in order to exhibit corporate social responsibility:

• TUI- TUI is one of the world’s largest tour operators. TUI has developed an excellent system that hotels at UK have to adapt in order to attain sustainability.
• International Hotel Environmental Initiative (IHEI) is a scheme for managing the environment that has to be adapted by hotels at UK. At present nearly 11000 hotels are part of this scheme. The advice and publication made by International Hotel Environmental Initiative have helped the hospitality industry in UK to improve their standards of environmental practices.

References

• Price water house Coopers (2006) Hospitality Directions Europe Edition Issue 13, March 2006.
• Rupp Deborah E, Ganapathi Jyoti, Aguilera Ruth V, Williams Cynthia A (2006). Employee Reactions to Corporate Social Responsibility: An Organizational Justice Framework, Journal of Organizational Behavior, 27: 537-43.
• Lewis, S (2003). Reputation and Corporate Responsibility, Journal of Communication Management, 7(4), 356 – 364.