A Content Analysis of Social Media in Tourism During the Covid-19 Pandemic

The tourism sector is one of the most important drivers of the Portuguese economy. Indeed, any impacts on tourism organizations’ performance have a huge influence on the economic, social and cultural dynamic of the Portuguese society. As such, considering the challenges and pressure that the recent pandemic of COVID-19 has put on tourism organizations, much attention has been devoted to the problem. This paper focuses on web communication strategy followed by key organization in the tourism sector during COVID-19. It is an exploratory study based on a multiple case-study approach that combines different methodologies and techniques. The cases under study were selected through an analytic tool - SimilarWeb - and the preliminary findings, obtained through content analysis of websites and social media profiles of the organizations, indicate that Portuguese tourism organizations have entered in a new age of communication with their clients, characterized by more flexible, complex, and unbureaucratic communication strategies.