Tourism work, media & COVID-19: A changed narrative?

Major crises, such as COVID-19, have had a dramatic impact on tourism work. This paper investigates changes in news media reporting of tourism work from pre-pandemic norms, employing McQuail's classification for media and mass communications. We interrogate 664 news articles across two comparative periods. Findings indicate that news media themes in 2019 were often found in the ‘soft news’ sections, whereas the 2020 news elevated into ‘hard news’ sections, highlighting job losses, precarious work and community spirit. The analysis points to a more sympathetic narrative in the media about tourism employment. Theoretically, the paper is original in applying McQuail's media classification to tourism employment in a crisis context, contributing to our understanding of potential impacts of news media reporting.

Creating a safe haven during the crisis: How organizations can achieve deep compliance with COVID-19 safety measures in the hospitality industry.

The COVID-19 health crisis has engendered a set of additional health and safety regulations and procedures (e.g. social distancing) to the hospitality industry. The purpose of this paper is to explore in-depth how organizations can facilitate employees' deep compliance with these procedures. Employing an instrumental case-study approach, we collected multi-level interview data and archival data in a small-medium sized restaurant in China. The findings reveal that employees' deep compliance with safety procedures includes a four-stage psychological process, and this process is underpinned by both management safety practices and organizational crisis strategies. As the hospitality industry starts to exit lockdown and ramp up operations, this study offers theoretical and practical insights on how organizations in hospitality can protect the health and safety of their employees and the broader community.