Social Media During the COVID-19 Era in 5* Hotels in Attica, Greece

The rapid proliferation of coronavirus put public health in danger, and affected the global economy, while making the tourism industry suffer its worst recession. The imposition of strict restrictions on citizens’ free movement by the majority of the countries, as an effort to stop or slow down the new Covid-19 cases, has resulted in a rapid decline in the turnover of tourism businesses since April 2020. With the tourist transportation services demand facing an unprecedented decrease, the tourism industry has to deal with difficulties which can even push many businesses to collapse. The hospitality industry proved to be vulnerable as visitors were susceptible to risk and therefore sought safety. During the Covid-19 pandemic, hotels turned to social media to achieve timely and direct communication with their customers. This study aims to record and analyze the use of social media by the total of 5* hotels of Attica region during the coronavirus pandemic. A qualitative research was undertaken, and a social media posts analysis was conducted. The frequency, topic and purpose of the posts were detected and interpreted. The results show that hotels used social media to adopt a more humane attitude by sharing a sense of hope and care. Implications for actions and initiatives that need to be undertaken in the future are discussed.