Presentation done by Elise Wong, Rosanna Leung and Rob Law, during "Website analytics" workshop, of the ENTER2015 eTourism conference.

1. ENTER 2015 Research Track Slide Number 1
How effective are Asian hotels in communicating
CSR efforts through the property websites?
The case of Hong Kong
Elise Wong , Rosanna Leung and Rob Law
The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong
elise.wong@outlook.com
ros.leung@polyu.edu.hk
rob.law@polyu.edu.hk

2. ENTER 2015 Research Track Slide Number 2
Agenda
• Introduction
• Methodology
• Findings & Discussions
• Conclusion & Future Research

3. ENTER 2015 Research Track Slide Number 3
Introduction
Research Background
• Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)
– Lack of single accepted definition
– A growing interest in concept among hospitality
organizations, due to the various benefits
created by implementing CSR program :
• Increase customers and employees’ loyalty and
satisfaction level, improve brand image and
reputation, and generate long-term financial
benefits (Lee & Hoe, 2009; Lee & Park, 2009; McGee et al.,
2009).

4. ENTER 2015 Research Track Slide Number 4
Introduction
CSR Definition
• CSR definition basically refers to five
dimensions (Dahlsurd, 2008):
• Environmental
• Social
• Economic
• Stakeholder
• Voluntariness

5. ENTER 2015 Research Track Slide Number 5
Introduction
CSR Measurement Model
• Carroll’s (1979) “Corporate social performance
model” (CSPM)
– Contain 3 aspects : social responsibility categories,
social issues, and social responsiveness.
• Elkington’s (1999) “Triple Bottom Line” (TBL)
– Comprised 3 dimensions : people, profit, and
planet.
– Widely adopted as various CSR reporting standards,
such as Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) and the
United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).

6. ENTER 2015 Research Track Slide Number 6
Introduction
CSR Communication
• Traditional:
– companies communicated CSR efforts through
expensive and inefficient traditional media, such as
annual report, sustainability report, television
advertising, and leaflets or newspapers (Wandered et
al., 2008).
• Contemporary:
– the invention and popularity of the Internet have
provided an alternative. The Internet has allowed
companies to present and update information for
different audience regardless of time and space
(Adams & Frost, 2004; Frost et al., 2005; Wang & Chaudhry, 2009)

7. ENTER 2015 Research Track Slide Number 7
Introduction
Website evaluation
• Prior research had contributed to
knowledge of website evaluation, mainly
from three approaches:
1. Website functionality approach;
2. Customer usability approach; and
3. Website functionality and customer usability

8. ENTER 2015 Research Track Slide Number 8
Introduction
Website evaluation
• Murphy et al. (1996)
– First study to evaluate hotel website performance from
functionality approach and identified four dimensions:
• promotion and marketing content; service and information;
interactivity and technology; and management
• Morrison et al. (1999)
– Modified “Balanced scorecard model” (mBSC)
developed by Kaplan and Norton (1992), and the model
comprised four perspectives:
• Technical, customer, marketing and internal.
• Wang and Russo (2007)
– Developed an ICTR (Information, Communication,
Transaction and Relationship) model to evaluate the
effectiveness of Destination Marketing System function.

9. ENTER 2015 Research Track Slide Number 9
Introduction
Hotel CSR web-based communication
• The hospitality industry is still at an early stage
of web-based CSR communication.
• Only four studies evaluated the CSR
communication practice on hotel websites:
– Holcomb et al. (2007) and Nyahunzvi (2013)
• Identify different CSR themes discussed on the websites
– Hsieh (2012)
• focused on environmental issues
– de Grosbois (2012)
• concentrated on the CSR commitment and achievement
data and examined the communication methods that
hotels employed in presenting CSR efforts on the
websites

10. ENTER 2015 Research Track Slide Number 10
Introduction
Research Gap
• First, prior studies only focused on examining the
CSR content provided in corporate websites, and
most of them evaluated the CSR communication
practice from a traditional CSR reporting approach,
ignoring the usability and interactive elements of a
website.
• Second, prior studies focused only on examining
the largest hotels in non-Asian countries.

11. ENTER 2015 Research Track Slide Number 11
Introduction
Research aim & Objectives
Aim:
•to examine Hong Kong hotels’ web-based CSR communication
performance.
Objectives:
1.to examine the web-based CSR communication practice in Hong
Kong hotel;
2.to evaluate the performance of Hong Kong’s hotel websites in
communicating CSR effort from functionality approach; and
3.to compare website performance in communicating CSR
practices among three different types of hotel in Hong Kong.

12. ENTER 2015 Research Track Slide Number 12
Methodology
• This study evaluated the website
performance in terms of communicating
CSR practices based on content analysis of
websites of Hong Kong hotels.
– Content analysis is a technique employed to
collect and analyse text, picture, symbols,
themes, or ideas communicated (Neuman, 2002).

13. ENTER 2015 Research Track Slide Number 13
Methodology
Target Sample
• 124 hotels in Hong Kong were listed as
members of the Hong Kong Hotels
Association
• Hotels are classified into three categories:
– International hotel (42)
– Regional hotel (32)
– Local hotel (50)

14. ENTER 2015 Research Track Slide Number 14
Methodology
Hotel Classification
Types of
hotel
Classification
International The hotel is an operating or/and managing property
worldwide
Regional The hotel is an operating or/and managing property in the
Asia-Pacific region
Local The hotel is an operating or/and managing property in Hong
Kong

15. ENTER 2015 Research Track Slide Number 15
Methodology
Data Collection & Analysis
• All 124 hotel official websites were inspected for CSR
related information and documentations in March 2014
• Content analysis
– All 50 criteria listed in the research model was scored
by either 0 (criterion not exist) or 1 (criterion exist)
point.
– Only consider the information listed on property
website.
– The website section that hotel use to communicate
CSR information was also recorded.

16. ENTER 2015 Research Track Slide Number 16
Methodology
Modified ICTR Model

17. ENTER 2015 Research Track Slide Number 17
Methodology
Modified ICTR Model

18. ENTER 2015 Research Track Slide Number 18
Findings & Discussions
CSR communication practice at HK hotel websites

19. ENTER 2015 Research Track Slide Number 19
• http://www.marriott.com/hotels/travel/hkgap-hong-kong-skycity-marriott-hotel/
• http://www.marriott.com/hotels/travel/hkgcy-courtyard-hong-kong/

20. ENTER 2015 Research Track Slide Number 20
Findings & Discussions
The Website Section hotel use to provide CSR Information

21. ENTER 2015 Research Track Slide Number 21
Findings & Discussions
CSR communication performance of HK hotel websites

22. ENTER 2015 Research Track Slide Number 22
Findings & Discussions
CSR communication performance of HK hotel websites
• Information:
– For the quantity aspect, these hotel were providing
limited CSR topics from narrowed CSR themes:
• “Social and community action “ – 87.9%
• “Environmental action” – 81.8%
• “Economic action” – 33.3%
• “ Diversity & disable accessibility action” – 33.3%
• “Employment action” – 21.2%
– For the quality aspect, these hotel show better
performance, 51.5% of the hotels received half
weight or above performance score for this factor.

23. ENTER 2015 Research Track Slide Number 23
Findings & Discussions
CSR communication performance of HK hotel websites
• Communication:
– All of the samples hotel in this study received a poor
performance score:
• 30.3 % of the hotels received 0 point
• Remaining hotels provided 1 to 2 communication tools in
their website
• 60% of the hotels provided interactive communication
tools

24. ENTER 2015 Research Track Slide Number 24
Findings & Discussions
CSR communication performance of HK hotel websites
• Technical merit:
– Most of the hotels performed well in this dimension,
and had good performance in website accessibility,
such as :
• Raid access – 90.9%
• Language option – 87.9%
• Link without errors – 78.8%
• Engine recognition – 75.8%

25. ENTER 2015 Research Track Slide Number 25
Findings & Discussions
CSR communication performance
among three different types of hotel in HK

26. ENTER 2015 Research Track Slide Number 26
Conclusion
• Property website is not a popular medium for
communicating CSR efforts in the HK hotel
industry.
• Most of international and local hotels tend to
provide CSR efforts through Facebook.
• Most of the hotels seldom provide information in
specific CSR section and were presenting CSR
information through hotel information section
(International hotels) and award section (Regional
and local hotels).

27. ENTER 2015 Research Track Slide Number 27
Conclusion
• Most hotels performed poorly on web-based CSR
communication.
– Only provided limited CSR information under narrowed CSR
themes in the websites and seldom disclosed the achievement
data.
• Moreover, many hotels performed poorly in
communicating their CSR efforts.
– Sample hotels in this study received a poor performance score in
“communication function” with average score 1.82 out of 12 and
ranged from 0 to 4.
• CSR efforts are not regarded as important information on
the property websites, and the goal in providing
information on CSR efforts on the website is mainly for
marketing and customer approach.

28. ENTER 2015 Research Track Slide Number 28
Future Research
• Including customer opinions
• Modify the evaluation model, consider the
information's volume
• Include other web-based media in evaluating
CSR communication performance in the hotel
industry.

29. ENTER 2015 Research Track Slide Number 29