This ongoing study investigates the role of spirituality for corporate social responsibility (CSR) by tourism businesses in lesser developed countries and the implications this has at the destination level. While much of the world’s tourism industry is located in lesser developed countries, it is generally accepted that the CSR literature to date has been mostly Western-centric with dominant theories focussing for example on Corporate Social Performance, Shareholder Value Theory, Stakeholder Theory and Corporate Citizenship (Crane, McWilliams, Matten, Moon, & Siegel, 2008). However, lesser developed countries have a very different rationale for focussing on CSR and Visser (2008, p. 474), for example, highlights that:

• Developing countries represent the most rapidly expanding economies, and hence the most lucrative growth markets for business;
• Developing countries are where the social and environmental crises are usually most acutely felt in the world;
• Developing countries are where globalisation, economic growth, investment, and business activity are likely to have the most dramatic social and environmental impacts (both positive and negative);
• Developing countries present a distinctive set of CSR agenda challenges which are collectively quite different to those faced in the developed world.