Corporate Sustainability in the Tourism Sector: Is “Integrated Reporting” an Appropriate Strategy?

Sustainability reporting has been created to satisfy many interests, by virtue of stakeholder theory, it has become crucial factor contributing to corporate sustainability. Integrated Reporting is becoming the leading new corporate reporting standard. The Integrated Reporting process is still in the development phase in South Africa with many companies uncertain about its benefits and how to assess its impact. However, the majority of the companies have not yet developed integrated reports and is grappling with questions such as: What is the meaning of integrated thinking? The study looks into the content and quality of integrated reports of three listed companies in South Africa in order to evaluate whether they contribute to a more concise and balanced understanding of corporate performance compared to stand-alone sustainability reports. We chose the tourism sector because tourism has often been portrayed as a best practice for sustainable development. The paper aims to empirically test the assumption that the preparation of Integrated Reports will lead to an improvement in the quality of information disclosed. We explore whether integrated reporting actually satisfy stakeholders’ informational needs and contributes to their empowerment. Quality information must result in reduction of information asymmetries, allowing effective control of managers and establishing good governance. The results confirm that general norms and enforcement mechanisms that regulate stakeholders’ rights can have a significant impact on business disclosure practices. An important result is to consider “excessive” the definition of integrated thinking. This result is in sharp contrast to the theory and the principles of integrated thinking, but it highlights how difficult it is to translate into operational terms the integrated thinking. Accordingly, our results need to be confirmed by further studies, also qualitative study, based on the preferences of managers in different countries and sector.