Topic and sentiment analysis of crisis communications about the COVID-19 pandemic in Twitter’s tourism hashtags

Abstract

The purpose of this paper was to assess Twitter as a means of communication during tourism crises with the following objectives: (a) identify the topics that are discussed, (b) establish the text sentiment, and (c) determine the differences in gender regarding the topics under discussion and the text sentiment. The data were collected from Twitter between March and April 2020. Using big data software, this study extracted 123,868 tweets globally in different languages through the Twitter API of popular tourism hashtags. Two techniques were applied: word association and sentiment analysis. The results show that the communication made through Tweets has the characteristics of a crisis communication related to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic in the tourism industry. The theoretical contribution of the research is that Twitter in social media is an effective means of communication during pandemic crises and contributes to reducing negative perceptions and adverse effects of the tourism crises in companies and destinations. The practical contribution of the research is that Twitter can be used as a means of communication helping the communication strategies of companies and organizations.