Nightmares in “the happiest place on earth”: dissatisfaction in theme parks during the post-COVID era

ABSTRACT

This study examines the negative effects of COVID health and safety protocols implemented by theme parks in the context of the ‘new normal’ (summer 2021) on the number of visitors the park has received and their (dis)satisfaction levels. The study uses actual content analysis from 1,142 online reviews from two different time periods (before and after the COVID-19 pandemic), obtained from TripAdvisor, for a cross-country analysis. Results from analysis of variance and linear regression models show that dissatisfaction has rocketed since the pre-COVID era. Reasons for this dissatisfaction differ among parks, indicating that there may be different ways in which tourist agents can deal with these COVID protocols, ways that may be more or less successful in terms of improving consumer satisfaction.

KEYWORDS:

• Theme park
• COVID-19
• health and safety protocols
• consumer dissatisfaction
• online reviews

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by the grant [Proyecto PID2020-116247GB-I00 financiado por MCIN/ AEI /10.13039/501100011033] from the Spanish Agencia Estatal de Investigacion ´ (AEI) and the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF).

Notes on contributors

Juan Pedro Mellinas

Juan Pedro Mellinas is Assistant Professor of Marketing at University of Murcia (Spain). His articles have appeared in Tourism Management, Annals of Tourism Research, International Journal of Hospitality Management and Tourism Review, among other journals. His research interests are focused on tourism satisfaction, using online reviews in websites like Booking.com or TripAdvisor as main data source.

Isabel P. Riquelme

Isabel P. Riquelme is Assistant Professor of Marketing at University of Murcia (Spain). Her articles have appeared in the Journal of Interactive Marketing, Review of Marketing Research, Journal of Business Ethics, Ethics and Information Technology, Electronic Commerce Research, Journal of Electronic Commerce Research, Electronic Markets or Tourism Management Perspectives, among other journals. Her research interests are focused on online retailing, business ethics and socially responsible consumption.

Manuela López

Manuela López is Professor of Marketing at the University of Murcia (Spain). Her research interests are focused on the influence of eWOM in consumer behaviour, WOM marketing and social media. She has published articles in journals such as the Electronic Commerce Research and Applications, European Journal of Marketing, Internet Research, Online Information Review, Journal of Research in Interactive Marketing, Journal of Product and Brand Management, and Journal of Theoretical and Applied Electronic Commerce Research.