Communication responses to COVID-19 from tourism stakeholders: the bottom-up digital campaign 'Open Sardinia'

The study investigates local responses to COVID-19 undertaken by tourism operators by collaborative approaches shared with other stakeholders and implemented through social media tools. Specifically, the paper seeks to shed light on non-governmental initiatives generated by private tourism stakeholders aimed at promoting safe tourism during the time of COVID-19 by analysing the advertising campaign “Open Sardinia” implemented in Sardinia (Italy) in 2020. The present qualitative study developed by interviews with tourism operators who implemented the Open Sardinia campaign aims to contribute to the stakeholder collaboration literature with a disaster context in tourism and provide knowledge to the transformative role of reshaping tourism at the age of COVID-19. Basically, the paper focuses on the key factors of the sharing of collaborative practices among private and public stakeholders in facing the disaster crises caused by COVID-19. Such key factors are based on trust, relationship and place attachment, and operatively on the adoption of digital tools such as social media. Findings show that the bottom-up advertising campaign has strongly implemented collaborative networks among different operators, finalised not only to attract tourists, but also to enhance social cohesion and resilience of local communities.