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Physically Apart, Emotionally Close: How Family-Run Hotels Used Instagram During the COVID-19 Pandemic – Social Media Crisis Communication During the COVID-19 Pandemic

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Abstract

This chapter aims to explore the use of social media channels in the crisis communication of Austrian family-led hotels during the COVID-19 pandemic. Building on current research on family businesses and crisis communication on social media, the authors investigated seven Instagram profiles of family-owned hotels in Tyrol and its borders. The data were collected in spring and summer 2020 and then analyzed using a mixed-method approach. First, the researchers did a quantitative analysis of the hashtags and then conducted a qualitative content analysis of the pictures and respective captions. The results show that information relating to the crisis is rarely communicated and the focus of communication rather lies on positive attitudes, emotions, and classic alpine marketing topics. During the crisis, the hotels present themselves as resilient and anchored in their family values. This chapter adds new insights to current research on family firms' crisis communication and provides valuable findings for the development of a successful communication strategy for family businesses.

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... However, while several studies investigate crisis response strategies during the pandemic (Farmaki et al., 2020;Hang et al., 2020) and the use of Twitter or Facebook for crisis communication in tourism (Barbe & Pennington-Gray 2018;Wang et al., 2021), research about crisis coping communication on Instagram is hard to find. Furthermore, the existing literature mainly focuses on the crisis communication of destination management organizations (Nadegger et al., 2020) or the hospitality sector (Fecker et al., 2021;Wong et al., 2021). Even though Austrian ski resorts emerge in many journals as being "the first hub of transmission" (Moshammer et al., 2020, S. 1), research on how ski resorts communicate with their guests during the pandemic is missing. ...
... Whereas this focus on positivity is dominating the communication strategy, the audience gets a glimpse of the underlying struggle. The ski resorts tried to keep distanced travelers emotionally close (Fecker et al., 2021;Nadegger et al., 2020) and, simultaneously, offered informational and inspirational content for the local population -in posts that address the absence of the otherwise readily welcomed guests. By comparing two winter seasons this study found that these topics represent the main content of the ski resorts. ...
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Tourism destinations in every corner of the globe face the virtual certainty of experiencing a disaster of one form or another at some point in their history. Despite this, few destinations have properly developed disaster management plans in place to help them cope with such eventualities. Among the reasons for this is the limited amount of systematic research that has been carried out in the field. This paper addresses this problem by drawing on insights from the broader disaster management literature to produce a generic model for analysing and developing tourism disaster management strategies. A set of prerequisites and principles of effective tourism disaster management planning is also provided.
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The Resource-Based View (RBV) of competitive advantage provides a theoretical framework from the field of strategic management for assessing the competitive advantages of family firms. The RBV isolates idiosyncratic resources that are complex, intangible, and dynamic within a particular firm. The bundle of resources that are distinctive to a firm as a result of family involvement are identified as the “familiness” of the firm. This approach provides a research and practice method for assessing the specific behavioral and social phenomena within a firm that provide an advantage. Using a familiness model for assessing competitive advantage overcomes many of the problems associated with the generic claim that family companies have an advantage over nonfamily companies. It also provides a unified systems perspective of family firm performance.
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This article reviews the literature on family business from a strategic management perspective. In general, this literature is dominated by descriptive articles that typically focus on family relationships. However, the literature does not usually address how these relationships affect the performance of a family business. Taking a strategic management perspective, we outline a new set of objectives for family-business research. We also identify some of the key issues and gaps that should be explored in future studies if research is to contribute to improving the management practices and performance of family firms.
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Twitter is the latest social networking tool said to be reshaping politics. Twitter allows subscribers to write a 140-character status update, called a ‘tweet'. This research analyzes the intersection of microblogging and Canadian politics. There is little scholarship on the political aspects of Twitter. This paper seeks to fill this gap through a content analysis of the most popular Canadian political hashtag, #cdnpoli. Designated by a ‘hash' symbol (#), a hashtag is a keyword assigned to information that describes a tweet and aides in searching. With 50 million tweets per day, hashtags are central to organizing information on Twitter. Hashtags organize discussion around specific topics or events. Political hashtags came to prominence in events like the 2009 Iran presidential election. Indeed, #iranelection was the number one news topic on Twitter in 2009. The popular literature suggests that Twitter is a democratic media because it allows for on-the-ground reporting of breaking news and democratic activism. This analysis shows that informing is the primary function of a political hashtag such as #cdnpoli. Political dialogue and reporting is rare. Contributors scour the internet for relevant online information on Canadian politics and use #cdnpoli as a dissemination feed. The value of a political hashtag derives from the real-time nature of the information shared.