Success Factors for Managing Corporate Social Responsibility Activities at Malea-lea Ecotourism Venture During COVID-19

Abstract

Ecotourism should conserve the environment, sustain the well-being of the local people, educate and promote cultural understanding. COVID-19 imposed challenges on the tourism sector impeding it from achieving its mandate. However, there has been little attention given to how some aspects of tourism sustained themselves during the pandemic. This is particularly true in developing countries like Lesotho, where businesses were entirely closed to tourists. The Malea-lea lodge, has been promoting the well-being of the local communities through corporate social responsibility. It established the Malea-lea Development Trust to implement and oversee all its corporate social responsibility activities. Though negatively devastated by the pandemic, the Malea-lea lodge through Malea-lea Development Trust was able to meet some of its social responsibility obligations. The purpose of the study was to investigate the critical success factors that helped this ecotourism venture achieve its social obligations despite the impact of the pandemic. Face-to-face interviews with the employees and focused group discussions with some beneficiaries of the Malea-lea Development Trust were held. The main theme that emerged after thematic analysis was labelled success factors, emanating from several categories ranging from monitoring of projects, motivation and sense of satisfaction, independence and collaboration, training and personal skills, to the role of the financial policy.

Keywords

• corporate social responsibility
• covid-19
• ecotourism
• lesotho
• malea-lea