Navigating Uncertainty: Social Media Narratives of Tourism during COVID-19

Abstract

Abstract The COVID-19 pandemic and the travelling restrictions put in place by governments had an unprecedented effect on tourism in South Tyrol, with stays from the main markets experiencing a loss ranging from -36.3% to -73.4%. The present study explores the English-language social media communication of tourist destinations in South Tyrol during the first wave of the COVID-19 outbreak. To do so, a combined methodological approach is adopted, based on ethnographic interviews with practitioners of the tourism sector and corpusassisted discourse analysis. The findings reveal that the deployment of futureoriented and corrective linguistic approaches to envision a post-crisis scenario is crucial in conveying hope and possibility. These findings not only enhance our understanding of tourism discourse in the context of communication crisis management but also have implications for the resilience of tourism industry during challenging periods.