A content analysis of Chinese news coverage on COVID-19 and tourism

ABSTRACT

News coverage plays a significant role in the tourism industry. 2019 Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) has severely affected the tourism-related businesses and has been featured in Chinese news coverage. This research studied 499 newspaper articles through automated content analysis. Nine key themes were identified, including COVID-19's impact on tourism, people's sentiment, control of tourism activities and cultural venues, the role of the hospitality industry, national command and local response, tourism disputes and solutions, corporate self-improvement strategies, government assistance, and post-crisis tourism product. This research provides insights into future investigations of the tourism crisis related to an epidemic.

KEYWORDS:

• Tourism crisis
• COVID-19
• news coverage
• content analysis
• Gephi

Disclosure statement

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

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Sichuan Province Science and Technology Plan Project (to LI Zhiyong) [grant number 2019YFS0078]; Sichuan University(to LI Zhiyong) [grant number 2019hhs-13].