The Role of Public Relations in Tourist Attractions under Terrorist Attacks: Analysis of the Crisis Communication in London, Manchester, and Paris after the 2017 Attacks

Terrorist attacks have a negative impact on destination image, affecting their tourism demand and generating a crisis in the tourism sector. The objective of this article is to investigate how the Destination Marketing Organizations (DMOs) of London, Manchester and Paris managed the crisis during and after the terrorist attacks of 2017 from a Public Relations perspective. A content analysis method of the tweets published in the official account profiles of said destinations was carried out during the 30 days that followed the terrorist attacks. Based on the existing literature on crisis communication, an analysis template was developed that analysed the timing, format and content of the tweets, as well as the reactions they generated in the public. The results indicate that the 3 DMOs focused their communication efforts on the dissemination of messages to promote tourism in the region in order to manage the crisis, but despite the fact that the public want to be informed when an attack occurs to understand what happened and feel safe, DMOs communicated little or nothing about what happened in the attack. In addition, the tweets that reported on the management of the attack carried out and the protection of stakeholders were the ones that obtained the greatest reactions among the public. The main contributions of the study are the analysis template created for the analysis of destinations' crisis communication and the fact that public value the information received about the attack and the protection management carried out by the DMOs.