The stakeholder engagement in Spanish hotels' sustainability reports

Background: Recent years have witnessed an increasing number of companies issuing sustainability reports. However, there are concerns of the extent to which this increase in the number and length of reports have been accompanied with an increase in the accountability and transparency. Scholars have studied the degree of disclosure of environmental, social and economic aspects, while less literature has focused on what companies disclose regarding how the stakeholder engagement has informed the process of reporting. Aim: The purpose of this exploratory study is to analyse the transparency of Spanish hotels' sustainability reports with a focus on stakeholder engagement process as inclusiveness is considered a starting point to materiality and responsiveness. Method: Content analysis of most visible hotels chains and hotels sustainability reports. Results: Sustainability reports are not a generalised practice among hospitality companies. Five sustainability reports show scarce information about how stakeholder engagement process has informed decisions and there is no information about the basis for identification and selection of stakeholders with whom to engage. Only 2 major hotel chains include a materiality analysis omitting the logic behind the prioritisation of issues. Conclusion: Results show the level of transparency in the process of determining reports content is very low, companies struggling to apply materiality and a need to increase external assurance. (C) 2016 ASEPUC. Published by Elsevier Espafia, S.L.U. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license