Hotel crisis communication on social media: effects of message appeal

ABSTRACT

The hotel industry is vulnerable to various external crises, such as the recent COVID-19 pandemic. Social media is one of the primary platforms for hotel crisis communication. Accordingly, this study adopted the perspective of message appeal and tried to develop effective hotel crisis communication messages. An online experiment was conducted where 260 Chinese customers were included. The results showed that emotional-appeal messages are more effective in attracting customers for luxury hotels, while functional-appeal messages are more suitable for economic hotels. The results also showed that perceived safety mediated the relationship between the message appeal and booking intentions and that this mediating relationship is moderated by the hotel type. This study further discussed theoretical and practical implications.

KEYWORDS:

• Social media
• crisis communication
• hotel
• message appeal
• functional appeal
• emotional appeal

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Bingjie Liu-Lastres

Bingjie (Becky) Liu-Lastres is an assistant professor in the Department of Tourism, Event, and Sport Management at Indiana University-Purdue University at Indianapolis. The goal of Liu-Lastres’s research agenda is to promote safe travel and to ensure the health and well-being of tourists, organizations, and other key stakeholders within the tourism and hospitality industry.

Yueying Guo

Yueying Guo graduated from the School of Hospitality and Tourism Management at University of Surrey with a M.S. degree in International Hotel Management.

Hongbo Liu

Hongbo (Daisy) Liu is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Hospitality and Tourism Management at University of Surrey. Her research interests include digital marketing, social media, digital technology, cross-cultural studies, and consumer psychology in tourism and hospitality.