Corporate Social Responsibility of Four-and-Five Star Hotels in the Vietnamese Northern Economic Triangle

Research purpose: This paper aims to investigate corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities that are being implemented in four-and-five-star hotels in the Vietnamese “northern economic triangle”. Research motivation: Facing the challenges for sustainable development, the debate on CSR in the hospitality industry has been continuing for several decades in both academia and business society. In the mean time, the hospitality industry has been chosen as one of the top prioritized for economic growth in Vietnam. Nevertheless, CSR in the hospitality industry in Vietnam has not yet adequately studied to clarify the actions needed to promote CSR in this industry. Research design, approach, and method: The six CSR measurements were adapted from existing literature to use in our study. A self-administered questionnaire survey was conducted at 64 four-and-five-star hotels in Hanoi, Hai Phong, and Quang Ninh, which are called the “northern economic triangle”. After four months, we received 483 valid responses from employees and managers from the surveyed hotels. The SPSS software was employed to analyze the data. Main findings: Research results show that this study shows that, in general, the implementation of CSR is quite fully implemented in the hotels located in the “northern economic triangle” of the Vietnam. In terms of the hotel’s CSR implementation, CSR to suppliers (SUP) is being evaluated as being performed at the best level with a value of 4.37 points. Then, the two following aspects are CSR to customers (CUS) and CSR to the environment (ENV), with the same score of 4.36 points. The remaining CSR scales also have slightly different scores. Among six CSR topics, CSR to the community (COM) is assessed as having the lowest level of implementation with a minimum average value of 4.23. Meanwhile, CSR to the government or other actors are higher. This result implies that four-and-five star hotels in Vietnam have a CSR strategy that focuses on important actors, namely customers and suppliers. Practical/managerial implications: We suggest that four-and-five star hotels in Vietnam should continue to use CSR as a differentiation strategy. Compared to other businesses, the hospitality industry is still at its embryonic stage. There are many things to pay attention to, from theory to practice, to improve CSR in this industry. CSR can act as a means to achieve sustainable development goals. This is because CSR is about the attitudes that hotels adopt towards “stakeholders” such as employees, consumers, the community, the environment or even future generations. The hotel that implements effective and practical CSR will not only make the business sustainable but also contribute progressive values to society, contributing to social improvement. This also shows that CSR is the self-responsibility of businesses and is always associated with society through specific expressions of responsibility to employees, partners, consumers, law, community, and the environment. Implementing CSR aims to improve efficiency in the hospitality industry, create competitive advantages for hotels, contribute to improving the quality of the tourism industry, and create prerequisites for sustainable tourism. In other words, the CSR of four-and-five star hotels will contribute to tourism performance, ensuring that all tourism economic activities will not have negative consequences on the environment and society (including the economic) and future tourism environment.