Tracking tourism and hospitality employees’ real-time perceptions and emotions in an online community during the COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

Online communities are playing a critical role in social communication during the COVID-19 pandemic. We reviewed 25,795 online comments from Reddit, a popular social-media website with a subsection focused on tourism and hospitality employees, regarding COVID-19. We found key hidden topics dominating employee perceptions (i.e. COVID-19, racism, compassion, employment issues, sanitation), tracked changes of these issues over time, and catalogued the changes in employees' emotions. This study provides discussion and new insights for tourism and hospitality research within the field of pandemic studies.

A bibliometric review of research on COVID-19 and tourism: Reflections for moving forward

“…In other words, research shows that organizational CSR is even more indispensable during the COVID-19 crisis in order to alleviate the severe emotional challenges (e.g. compassion, racism, and job security) generated to tourism employees ( Park, Kim, & Kim, 2020 ) and maintain the employee satisfaction and performance. Hence, dealing with the pandemic becomes a moment of truth for organizations to prove their CSR commitment and prove their ability to strengthen and customize CSR strategies to address the specific crisis circumstances and context.…”

“…To better examine and unravel the impact of CSR policies on ‘sensitive’ employees' attitudes, behaviors and mental health, research should also adopt research methods that go beyond the traditional survey methods. For example, by analyzing online comments on a popular social media website, Park et al (2020) found several hidden issues (e.g. racism, safety and other employment concerns) that are not easily said or reported.…”

Present and prospective research themes for tourism and hospitality education post-COVID19: A bibliometric analysis

“… 28% Demand analysis and tourism development Crespí-Claderaet al, 2021 ; Kourentzes et al, 2021 ; Liu et al, 2021 ; Qiuet al, 2021 ; Fotiadis, Polyzos, & Huan, 2021 ; Guo, Liu, Song, & Y, 2021 ; Wickramasinghe & Ratnasiri, 2020 ; Gallego & Font, 2020 . 44% Others Kaczmarek, Perez, Demir, & Zaremba, 2021 ; Qiu et al, 2021 ; Wieczorek-Kosmala, 2021 ; Huang, Makridis, Baker, Medeiros, & Guo, 2020 ; Khan et al, 2021 0 28% Hospitality and tourism workforce/employee Organizational trust & resilience Guzzo et al, 2021 ; Ngoc et al, 2021 ; He et al, 2020 ; Salazar, 2020 ; Mao et al, 2020 28% Job performance & life satisfaction Tu et al, 2021 ; Aguiar-Quintana et al, 2021 ; Kim et al, 2021 ; Karatepe, Saydam, & O, 2021 ; Vo-Thanh et al, 2020 28% Turnover intentions Yu et al, 2021 ; Bajrami et al, 2021 ; Manoharan et al, 2021 16% Others Sakdiyakorn et al, 2021 ; Chadee et al, 2021 ; Zhang et al, 2020 ; Baum et al, 2020 ; Park et al, 2020 28% Customer/tourist studies …”

Does Employability Anxiety Trigger Psychological Distress and Academic Major Dissatisfaction? A Study on Tour Guiding Students

“…The fragile nature of the tourism sector renders it vulnerable to crises, both nationally and internationally (Yeh, 2020;Kaushal & Srivastava, 2021). While previous studies show that crises can potentially cause anxiety among current tourism employees (Park et al, 2020;Aguiar-Quintana et. al.…”

“…Recent works have addressed various issues related to tourism employees during the crisis (Mao et al, 2020;Park et al, 2020;He et al, 2020). For instance, Chen (2020) noted that the lack of social support and panic about the pandemic resulted in jeopardized well-being, with female and younger employees being more vulnerable to psychological distress.…”