Twitter Sentiment Analysis During Covid: The Case of Tourist Destination Crete Greece in Summer of 2021

Georgios Kokkinis
(International Hellenic University, Greece)

Abstract: Tourism has been hit hard by Covid-19 for the past two years. Large traditional destinations in the sector have lost a very large percentage of their turnover. The way of choosing a destination has changed, the selection of the Covid free destination has been included in the criteria, as well as the respective legislation for restrictive measures both in the place of vacation and the health protocols of the country of departure.

Compared to traditional advertising, word of mouth (WOM) advertising has impressive advantages, such as significantly lower costs and much faster dissemination, and this is especially true with the popularity of online social networks (eWoM). However, eWom should not be considered as a substitute to other promotional methods, rather than a major advertising medium.

This study has to do with the sentiment analysis on social media and specifically through Twitter, regarding one of the largest summer tourist destinations in Greece, Crete during summer of 2021.

We observe that although Covid 19 has influenced the tourism sector, tourist customers express themselves positively about the tourism destination, even without any organization interacting with the user to manage and meet his needs, showing that even if they did not succeed to choose a tourist package in this place this year, most likely they will do it when the health conditions allow it

Key words: sentiment analysis, electronic word of mouth, Covid-19, vacations, Crete, Greece

JEL codes: M031, Z033