Crisis-Resistant Tourists – A Study of Hotel Online Reviews in the Times of Covid-19

Abstract

Introduction. Tourists traveling in the times of crisis have a higher tolerance for risk and can be called ‘crisis-resistant’. The fact that they are ready to travel even if it is burdened with additional stress and obstacles makes them a valuable market segment for hoteliers, which is worth striving for particularly in the current pandemic situation. The research aims at better understanding of contemporary ‘crisis-resistant’ tourists through in-depth analysis of electronic Word of Mouth (eWOM). Material and methods. A web scrapping method was applied to acquire eWOM content posted by tourists traveling in the times of Covid-19. A total of 1239 reviews from 455 hotels were analyzed. Six hypotheses were tested with the use of T Test and Chi Square test. Results. The type of travel and the month of travel did not influence the frequency of coronavirus mentions. Similarly, reviews relating to COVID-19 did not vary in score nor in frequency of managerial replies. However, mention of coronavirus influenced the length of the review and its helpfulness. Conclusions. Crisis-resistant tourists treat issues related to the pandemic (including some in-hotel regulations and restrictions) as any other aspects of the hotel performance and accept them. Interestingly, those aspects do not negatively influence the total evaluation of the hotel, which may suggest that such tourists have already adapted to all the pandemic-induced burdens. At the same time, hotel managers fail to respond timely and adequately to negative comments, which seems to be of the key importance in such a situation.