An assessment model of corporate social responsibility practice in the tourism industry

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) has gradually become a concern of many companies in the tourism industry. A substantial number of companies have implemented CSR programmes to pursue economic and environmental win–win situations while acting in a socially responsible manner. This study constructs an assessment model of CSR practice in the tourism industry to provide for more effective implementation of CSR. First, the researchers reviewed CSR-related literature and conducted in-depth interviews with industry experts. Based on the literature and the interviews, five dimensions, including Economy, Environment, Society, Culture and Consequence, and 15 criteria were extracted to form the assessment model. Second, the study examined the model's validity and established a consensus among the perspectives of academia, government and industry using the Fuzzy Delphi Method (FDM). Finally, the study adopted the DEMATEL and DEMATEL-based Analytical Network Process (ANP) technique to understand the causal relations and weights among the factors. The results indicated that Environment is the most influential dimension, Consequence is the most important dimension in the assessment model and Sustainable Cultural Inheritance is the most important criterion among all of the CSR practice criteria. Implications for application are discussed at the end of the paper.