Exploring tourist opinion expression on COVID-19 and policy response to the pandemic’s occurrence through a content analysis of an online petition platform

ABSTRACT

Numerous studies have examined disasters and crises affecting the tourism industry but very few have explicitly explored public opinion regarding a health-related crisis alongside a policy response to its occurrence. The COVID-19 pandemic with its rapid evolution and lasting detrimental implications has provided a unique opportunity to fill this knowledge gap. This study conducts a systematic content analysis of an online petition platform to explore public opinion on COVID-19 in the tourism context and the actions undertaken by the national government of China. The results demonstrate that trip cancellations and postponements represent the prime area of tourist concern, closely related to the issue of refunds. Mounting dissatisfaction with the service provided is triggered by ineffective communication about how to cancel and process refunds, and generates numerous complaints. However, the study finds that the policy action does not always regard tourist concerns, demands, and interests, because it primarily revolves around the problem of financial losses and focuses on the rapid economic rebound of the national tourism industry. The study recommends the need for policy instruments to understand and subsequently integrate public concerns in the design of interventions for crisis recovery.

KEYWORDS:

• Public opinion
• tourism crisis
• government actions
• policy instrument
• pandemic
• China

Disclosure statement

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

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Sichuan Province Science and Technology Plan Project [grant number 2020YFS0062], National Natural Science Foundation of China [grant number 71704125] and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities [grant number 20827041D4151].