ABSTRACT
Purpose - This research examines how chain hotels respond to the crisis in the context of situational crisis communication, focusing on the first emergence of the COVID-19 crisis and the second period of the pandemic, during which the pandemic was relatively weak. Design/methodology/approach - The data were obtained from the digital announcements shared by the world's 50 most valuable hotel chains. The announcements, declared in the two phases of March-April and July-September 2020, were analyzed. The data were collected through document analysis and transferred to the MAXQDA program for qualitative content analysis. Interviews were held with the managers of chain companies to compare and confirm the results obtained. Findings - Chain hotels announced regulations on existing reservations, potential customers, intermediary businesses, suppliers and employees by focusing on maintaining business reputation in the first phase of the pandemic. The hotel units seem to be more open to referrals on emergency measures from chain centers in this phase. In the second stage, announcements to increase sales were shared. The content of the crisis communication is in line with the predictions advocated under the situational crisis communication theory. In addition, some applications that do not comply with the theory are also identified. Research limitations/implications - The effects of the crisis communication on hotels were addressed;the responses of other stakeholders to the communication were not taken into account. Practical implications - Successful response strategies must be considered when developing future crisis preparedness measures. Actors in the hospitality industry can adopt a situational crisis communication approach as an effective strategy to cope with the losses caused by a crisis and possibly speed recovery. Hotels can turn the crisis into an opportunity with the strategies they put forward during the pandemic and gain stronger reputations after the pandemic. Originality/value - This study contributes to both the crisis management literature and the literature on COVID-19 by exemplifying the crisis communication measures and strategies of chain hotels. Focusing on different sub-processes in the analysis of crisis communication, revealing the background about the production and transfer of the information shared during the crisis, and interpreting the content of the messages by considering the benefit of the stakeholders and benefits of the hotel reveals the originality of this study.
ABSTRACT
Fourth year Information Systems (IS) students are expected to write a research paper on a selected IS topic. At the University of Pretoria in South Africa, a number of challenges were faced towards reaching this goal: many students have poor research and academic writing skills;the supervision load grows significantly as student numbers increase annually;and students' final research papers are rarely publishable. Some of these problems were solved by changing the module's objective to writing a systematic literature review (SLR). This paper describes how the curriculum of the module was adjusted to reach the objective and how the transition to fully remote teaching during the pandemic was managed. Blackboard Collaborate was used for synchronous online teaching and student engagement was facilitated by online learning tools, which include Jamboard. Both students and lecturers generally experienced the changes as positive. Recorded lectures are considered valuable as it enables flexible learning, and online learning tools were successfully utilised to make lectures more interactive. © Proceedings of the 2021 AIS SIGED International Conference on Information Systems Education and Research.