The Impacts of CSR of Hotels on the Socio-Economic Development of the South Tongu District of Ghana

Abstract

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) has become a key strategic initiative of companies in recent years. The relevance of the topic has grown since the outbreak of COVID-19. The study assesses the socio-economic impacts of corporate social responsibility of hotels in Ghana considering the types of corporate social responsibility activities engaged by the hotels, the socio-economic impacts of those CSR activities, and the advantages of CSR to the hotels. This study employed both interviews and questionnaires. Data from four hotels in the Sogakope community was collected through interviews. Four managers of the long-serving hotels in the community were interviewed. As well, a structured questionnaire was administered to the residents of the Sogakope community. Simple random sampling was employed and 157 responses were used for the analysis. Multiple regression analysis was conducted to test the hypotheses. The study revealed that CSR of hotels relates to socio-economic development of communities positively and significantly. There is a direct, positive, and significant relationship between having socio-economic impacts on communities and competitive advantage for hotels. Moreover, CSR strategies and initiatives adopted by the hotels are more geared towards social aspects of the community rather than environmental or economic. This study is one of the few to use both qualitative and quantitative approaches in finding out the socio-economic impacts of CSR on hotels as most previous studies have used either of them. The findings of the study enhance the knowledge of hotel management about the important role that CSR plays in directly and indirectly promoting the hotel’s performance through reputations and recommendations.