ABSTRACT
Tourism, being one of the largest industries in the world today, is the hardest hit by COVID-19, putting the industry in a fight for its sustainability. This situation is even more pronounced in Pakistan as a developing country, given the relatively larger need for harnessing natural and cultural ecosystem services, which brings business opportunities for forward-thinking tourism businesses to integrate sustainability challenges into their business operations. The focus of this book chapter is to showcase, through the lens of Creating Shared Value (CSV) concept and qualitative interviews, how Islamabad Serena Hotel (ISH), as a Pakistani luxury chain hotel leading in sustainability, engages in shared value creation, and further explores to what extent the hotel is willing to harness next-practice platforms in the form of innovative sectorial and cross-sectorial partnerships and collaborations, to contribute to sustainable destination management. The results show that although Islamabad Serena Hotel is quite successful in promoting tourism services through investing in its business ecosystem and improving the available skills, supplier base, and supporting organizations, the hotel believes that there is room for improvement in extending its capabilities and resources more toward sustainable destination management through innovative multi-stakeholder platforms and public-private partnerships, especially regarding destination development and branding. This case study’s findings encourage networking and inter-firm collaboration across different sub-sectors of the tourism industry.
