Hotel industry relationship marketing through Instagram social network in the COVID-19 pandemic crisis: Accor Brazil hotel chain case study

ABSTRACT

The COVID-19 pandemic brought the production process to a halt in the tourist chain, directly impacting the economic sphere and marketing communication between organizations in the segment and their interested public. The present work aims to identify whether the communication through the Instagram posts of the multinational hotel chain Accor was adapted to the COVID-19 pandemic scenario between December 2019 and June 2020 and the followers' level of engagement in its digital profile. The more-than-human netnography proposed by Lugosi & Quinton (2018) was adopted as a methodological approach, having as object of analysis the posts of the profile @all_latam (Accor America Latina) on Instagram and the behavior of the followers. We identified a follower appreciation regarding COVID-19 material. Therefore, hotel companies should produce crisis content related to increasing engagement on Social media posts.