CSR 2.0—Do Tourism Businesses Promote Sustainability Through Policy Design?

Abstract

The contribution of tourism businesses to sustainability is generally assessed based on two policy lenses: a) responses to regulatory provisions and financial instruments; and b) voluntary actions, such as those under the traditional CSR umbrella. The CSR 2.0 agenda extends the range of business responsibilities to include their engagement in the design of sustainability policies and governance. Drawing on the PARO framework for public engagement evaluation (Policy - Activities - Recruitment methods - Objectives of participation) developed by the author, this chapter examines whether tourism businesses in New Zealand used their capacities of policy-making stakeholders to incorporate sustainability provisions in the 2025 National Tourism Strategy. The findings show that generous engagement options were available to tourism businesses: the ‘self-selection’ and ‘targeted selection’ recruitment methods, which were available for all policy-making activities), based on the participatory objectives of ‘empowerment’ and ‘analytical input’. However, no sustainability provisions were included in this key instrument, other than commercial priorities. The inclusion of considerations regarding how businesses exercise their policy stakeholder roles would enable more holistic assessments of how businesses engage with the sustainability agenda.