The crisis arising from the COVID-19 pandemic has affected the entire tourism system, including communication and marketing practices. Of these practices, in recent years influencer marketing has been one of the more successful strategies for both destinations and tourism businesses. This research investigates the impacts of the COVID-19 crisis on travel content creators, their communicative practices, and their engagement with audiences, brands and health authorities. The study uses netnography based on immersion, interviews and social media content analysis. The results obtained show that the pandemic has transformed influencer marketing and has driven influencers to change their business strategies, content creation tactics and engagement mechanisms. The findings contribute to the crisis communication literature by illustrating that influencers constitute important allies for organisations when communicating during a crisis and have played a critical role in tourism recovery.
Keywords: COVID-19; Crisis communication; Influencer marketing; Influencers; Social media; Social media influencer; Tourism recovery.
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