COVID-19 Pandemic: A Sentiment and Emotional Analysis of Modified Cancellation Policy of Airbnb

Abstract

COVID-19 has brought the world to a standstill. Almost every country in the world is facing economic crisis. The most affected sector from COVID-19 is the hospitality and tourism industry. The industry has suffered a loss of billions of dollars. For homestays, Airbnb leads the sector with more than 75% market share in homestays. Forced lockdown in almost all countries leads Airbnb modify its cancellation policy. In this paper, we analyse people’s sentiments and emotions for the modified cancellation policy. We have used VADER analysis for sentiment analysis and modified BERT for emotional analysis. The results yield that even though maximum people are positive towards Airbnb, still they are angry with the modified policy. The density of anger is more in European and American continent as compared to other continents.