A content analysis for government’s and hotels’ response to COVID-19 pandemic in Egypt

Abstract

Drawing on the Situational Crisis Communication theory (SCCT), this study recapitulates the initiatives, practices, and responses of the Egyptian government and chain-managed five-star hotels during the COVID-19 global health pandemic. Subjective and objective content analysis is employed in this study. Subjective content analysis is employed to examine newspapers, magazines, T.V channels, and official pages on Facebook to determine the initiatives and practices adopted by the Egyptian government. Objective content analysis is further used to determine the COVID-19 hospitality practices adopted by 22 chain-managed five-star hotels by examining their official websites. Thematic saturation was attained when observations and analyses exhibited no new themes. Findings indicated that the Egyptian government and chain-managed five-star hotels implemented a number of initiatives and practices focused on financial policies, health and hygiene, workforce and training, marketing, domestic tourism, booking flexibility, cancellation policies, community support, vacations, and contracts. This study contributes to crisis management research by being one of the first studies to explore governments and hotel operations practices and initiatives during the COVID-19 using Egypt as a case study. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications during and post the COVID-19.