Social responsibility as a tool for destination competitiveness

Abstract

Tourism activity is increasingly growing worldwide. However, the number of tourist destinations is also growing at a fast pace, which is turning the tourist market in a highly competitive environment. In this study we propose the use of Social Responsibility (SR) policies as a tool for tourist destinations to gain competitiveness advantages. Data comes from a Discrete Choice Experiment (DCE), in which we measured visitors' of Cartagena de Indias (Colombia) willingness to pay (WTP) for different SR actions. In particular the policies were: (i) Labour conditions, (ii) Environmental issues, (iii) Community relations; (iv) Animal welfare. Althoug there was some clear differences among nationalities (e.g. "cultural bias") the results show on average that tourist had a positive attitude to SR policies. In terms of importance, the dimensions were ranked as follows: (1) Environment; (2) Labour; (3) Social Projects. While all SR activities were discovered to have a possitive influence on tourists choices, ther still exist a large controversy estimating the real impact of SR policies on tourism demand. Therefore, the paper concludes with some ideas for further investigation.