Sustainable development and stakeholder relations management: Exploring sustainability reporting in the hospitality industry from a SD-SRM approach

This paper explores the sustainability reporting of 170 hospitality companies from a SD-SRM approach. The purpose of the study is to ascertain the information that companies disclose in accordance with the sustainable development (SD) and the stakeholder relations management (SRM) theories and to identify the areas for improvement in the management and reporting practices of sustainability in the hospitality industry. The authors use the content analysis method to identify and describe the sustainability reporting of hotel chains and independently managed hotels in Spain. The findings show that the sustainability information reported by hospitality companies currently meets the basic principles of a SD-SRM approach. Nonetheless, the authors also identify areas for improvement, such as the orientation of the reporting to suppliers or the more equilibrated distribution of information among all corporate stakeholders. Based on these findings, the authors consider that the integration of information following the SD-SRM approach described in this paper could facilitate a better compliance of hospitality companies with the principles of the SD and SRM theories.