Public Perception of Tourism Cities before and during the COVID-19 Pandemic through the Lens of User-Generated Content

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic (coronavirus disease of 2019) sent the world into disarray and devastated the global tourism economy. In 2020 alone, the number of international tourists dropped by roughly 1.1 billion. This study examines user-generated content (UGC) on social media to elucidate the shift in people’s perceptions of popular tourism cities from before the pandemic to during the pandemic. This paper analyzes the characteristics of the cues in tourism-city-related UGC (particularly those related to the pandemic) and identifies the cues that resonate most with the public. This paper collected the data using Instagram’s application programing interface and then sorted the UGC based on content, type, time, likes, share, and comments. Between 1 January 2019 and 31 December 2019, it collected a total of 207,752 pre-pandemic posts and 173,131 peri-pandemic posts. The findings reveal that, during the pandemic, the interactivity of city-related UGC dropped, and only pandemic-related keywords gained public attention. By comparison, pre-pandemic positive posts mentioned local features and contained calls to action that were generally well-received. The findings also validate that UGC effectively reflects and enhances overall public perceptions, suggesting that, in a future which is forced to co-exist with SARS-CoV-2 in the long term, it is important to understand the positive and negative influences of UGC on tourism cities.