Responding to an unprecedented shock — Elucidating how 113 DMOs changed the marketing communications on Twitter during the COVID-19 crisis

This study analysed the changes in destination marketing organisation's (DMOs) marketing communications in response to the unprecedented shock of the pandemic. A total of 250,979 tweets and 44,560 replies by 113 DMOs before and during the pandemic were carefully examined using descriptive and time series analyses, topic modelling, sentiment analysis, and principal component analysis. The findings revealed four change patterns in Twitter usage: degrade, disseminate, engage, and elevate. Topic modelling identified 19 content topics and their five trends during the pandemic: falling, rebounding, maintaining, relapsing, and rising. Additionally, the four general content strategies — emotional, functional, informational, and experiential — provided a guideline and competitive landscape for DMOs to use in planning and devising their marketing communication strategies to handle such a shock. This study effectively addresses several research gaps, including the dearth of longitudinal, cross-country, and supply-side studies on crisis communications in tourism. As such, it enriches the existing body of knowledge by taking a comprehensive look at the diverse communication executions and strategies during both regular periods and crises. In doing so, it bridges the gap between theories of crisis communications and general social media communication strategies employed by DMOs.