Tourism destination image resiliency during a pandemic as portrayed through emotions on Twitter

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic is having a significant impact on tourism, and emotion projection is one way to understand the extent of destination image resiliency during the crisis. Therefore, this research captured emotions expressed in social media during a peak pandemic month to compare to the prior year period. Toronto and New York were selected due to their tourism importance within their countries but to also compare the effects of different policy approaches used during the pandemic. This study found resiliency of the destination images although there was a significant increase in projections of fear for both cities. Additionally, there was a significant divergence observed for the two cities with a decrease in joy and an increase in sadness projections for New York versus Toronto. This implies that tourism destination marketers have a stable basis of emotions to use in communications, but there are weaknesses to address.

Destination brand image and destination brand choice in the context of health crisis: Scale development

“…an individual’s belief and knowledge, and affective image, i.e. an individual’s emotions or feelings, which may impact tourist perceived destination brand image ( Afshardoost and Eshaghi, 2020 ; Currie, 2020 ; Japutra et al, 2017 ; Nadeau et al, 2022 ; Rasoolimanesh et al, 2021 ). Consumer perceptions of brands and cognitive feelings are shaped by brand cues, such as the good or bad image of a brand ( Morhart et al, 2015 ).…”

“…Destination brands that suffer from health crises struggle to keep their brand image as one of the best tourist destinations. The public health crisis of the COVID-19 pandemic and its impacts in terms of high infection and mortality rates have raised tourist concerns regarding the image of several tourist destination brands worldwide ( Avraham, 2021 ; Nadeau et al, 2022 ; Raoolimanesh et al, 2021 ) For example, China was one of those countries that considerably suffered through the COVID-19 pandemic and lost tourist engagement and preference, among other reasons, in the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic due to negative tourist perceptions about the destination brand image of China ( Lu and Atadil, 2021 ).…”

“…The impacts of destination crises on the tourism industry have also been documented ( Farmaki, 2021 ; Wu and Shimizu, 2020 ) and a growing body of literature advocates that the COVID-19 pandemic exaggerated the feeling of fear and anxiety among tourists across the globe ( Addo et al, 2020 ; Neuburger and Egger, 2020 ; Sánchez-Cañizares et al, 2020 ). The risk of catching the COVID-19 virus and its impact on tourism is claimed to be greater than earlier health crises ( Lu and Atadil, 2021 ; Nadeau et al, 2022 ; Zhan et al, 2022 ).…”

Overcoming the Negative Consequences of Coronavirus Pandemic on Tourism: The European Union Experience

“…on New Trends in Sustainable Business and Consumption the largest numbers of visitors in the world, but also from the EU, France, Spain, Italy, Germany (WTTC, 2020), the tourist offer, represented by both the tourist resources and the tourist infrastructure is very generous, and, last but not least, the first cases of COVID-19 in Europe were registered here, namely in Italy (Dorrucci, et al, 2021;Găitan, 2020) and Austria (Kreidl, et al, 2020). The COVID-19 pandemic has hit these countries hard (Moshammer, et al, 2020;Nadeau, Wardley and Rajabi, 2022), with an impact felt especially in countries, cities, and regions where tourism is an important part of the economy, and restrictive measures have led throughout different periods of time to the isolation of countries and to the development of much smaller tourist activity. A factor meant to support the recovery of the tourism sector, at the EU level, is the high vaccination rate registered among the EU member-states, which allowed the re-opening of borders in 2021 and tourist circulation, especially within the EU.…”

The Covid-19 pandemic as a tourism and hospitality evolutionary launchpad

“…Their analysis of close to 270 k tweets advocates that in times of crisis escapism is still on the agenda. Nadeau et al (2021) offer more insights and explain that twitter-positive emotions such as joy (at the top) and anticipation at the highest of the crisis are still there but so are negative emotions such as anger and fear (even amid crisis people clink on to joyful feelings)…”