Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has become an important issue for some governments but the tourism industry appears to be slow in adopting CSR strategies. By focusing on CSR, we argue that the implementation of CSR audits could help to integrate environmental and social considerations into the concept of marine tourism. We consider that a socially responsible tourism organisation will fully consider what impacts on communities and the environment will result from strategic and operational decisions, as well as better balancing the needs of all stakeholders.

In the UK, the concepts of CSR and sustainable development (SD) are beginning to be understood as related concepts. Implementation of CSR lags behind the progress being made on sustainable development in tourism. In contrast both concepts are relatively new to the developing country of Taiwan and decision-makers and developers are lacking expert knowledge in these fields.

The aim of this paper is to report on a research project at doctoral level that will develop a formal description of CSR for businesses at marine tourism destinations, and to examine its likely applications in a cross-cultural setting. CSR concepts and techniques developed in other sectors will provide a benchmark for marine tourism organisations. The challenge of adopting CSR benchmarking management techniques in marine tourism organisations in the UK and Taiwan opens up a door to help examine the extent of the influence of organisational culture in a cross-cultural setting, enabling the generated models of CSR to better handle and understand cultural dynamics.