The promotion of the Veneto territory in times of crisis: a critical discourse analysis of tourist boards websites during the COVID-19 pandemic

The aim of the study is to investigate the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on institutional tourism communication. In view of the necessary changes occurred in the tourism field since the start of the pandemic, a comparison will be made with the results of a previous study (Cesiri, 2019) of the English and the Italian versions of the seven tourism board websites corresponding to the seven “provinces” in the Veneto region. The present study analyses the changes in the communicative strategies used by the tourist board websites occurred since the 2019 study, examining how each territory is presented to prospective visitors as well as how the websites inform prospective visitors about the pandemic and the regulations in place to prevent contagion. The Italian and the English versions of the websites will be investigated, first to ascertain if the English text is a translation of the Italian one or a text originally written in English. Then, the verbal component of the websites will be investigated using Fairclough’s (2003) approach to discourse analysis. Particularly relevant will be the notion of ‘presupposition’, namely any kind of background assumption that is present in a text. Levels of presupposition will be investigated not only at the level of territorial description and promotion but also at the level of specialised communication about the pandemic, its outcome, and the corresponding restrictions and regulations that are in place at the moment of writing and that will presumably still be in place in the near future.