Corporate Social Responsibility in the Hospitality Industry and its contribution to the welfare of local communities. The case of Hilton Hotels

Bachelor Thesis from the year 2020 in the subject Tourism - Hotel Management, grade: 1,7, University of Applied Sciences Deggendorf, language: English, abstract: This bachelor this thesis attempts to apply Freeman's (1984) Stakeholder Theory in order to recognize the primary stakeholder groups, in this case, local communities. It will try to answer the following questions: How is the Hilton's CSR strategic level structured? Which role do communities play in Hiltons' CSR strategy? What are the current Hilton's CSR initiatives and goals that contribute to the welfare of communities? Moreover, it helps to clarify the company's behaviour and relationship with its stakeholders, having in mind Freeman's major idea that the best responses to the strong influence of stakeholders in a company are to balance their conflicting and challenging demands through the constant evaluation of the company's sustainable best practices.

In addition, this thesis aims to examine the implication of CSR in the hospitality industry and analyse the current CSR initiatives and best practices in the hospitality industry towards the welfare of communities. Thus, this research intends to evaluate in detail the CSR strategy of one renowned international hotel corporation in order to classify the important role that communities play in the strategy and to identify CSR initiatives and best practices towards the communities as stakeholders in the hospitality industry. This study takes as example the Hilton Worldwide Hotels.

The literature part of this thesis is composed by four main chapters: the introduction and research questions, the development of the CSR idea, followed by its implication in the tourism and hospitality industry and the central problematic of CSR in international hotel companies towards local communities and finally, an introduction to the relation between the hospitality industry and the society and communities. After the introductory part, the second part introduces and describes some of the most relevant literature discoveries on Corporate Social Responsibility. In addition, it highlights the association of CSR and sustainable development, presents a variety of concepts and definitions, and introduces a theoretical review concerning its correlation with society and communities.