The way society communicates with each other has gone through huge changes during the years. This has led to a revolution on the process of gather and exchange information by the consumers regarding brands, products, and services. Nowadays, any person can express their opinion on their social media accounts and share it with whoever he/she wants on a global scale. It is here that Social Media Influencers (SMIs) appear, anyone with a considerably large audience on social media has the ability to influence many others to take an action. Currently, the Tourism and Travel (T&T) industry is facing unprecedented challenges due to the Covid-19 pandemic; being one of the biggest sectors worldwide, driving socioeconomic development and job creation is vital for this industry to recover as faster as possible. Many actions are being done to make that happen and one possible great tool is SMI. Shortly, this research aims to understand if SMIs can boost the T&T industry by showing that a destination and its tourism services/products are safe in this time of fear of travelling due to the pandemic.

This work was undertaken at ISTAR-Information Sciences and Technologies and Architecture Research Center, and it was partially funded by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (Project “FCT UIDB/04466/2020”).

Social media,Social media influencers,Travel and tourism,Travel planning,Covid-19

• Computer and Information Sciences - Natural Sciences
• Other Social Sciences - Social Sciences