Semiotic fieldwork on chaordic tourism destination image management in Seoul during COVID-19

Tourism destination image management has been impacted by COVID-19 in Seoul, and a chaordic response to social distancing policies are visually evident in its built and inhabited landscape. The purpose of this study is to explore chaordic changes in the urban tourism destination as an effect of social distance, using a structural-social semiotics methodology. Online sampling was combined with naturalistic fieldwork to identify signs where these effects are visually evident. Online research was performed in early 2020 and onsite research was conducted in early 2021. Findings show how signs of the disease changed over time, from idealized representations of prevention, to hastily implemented acts of mitigation. The implications suggest that semiotic methodologies can enable decision makers to visualize the chaordic effects of policy during crisis and to make better structural planning decisions for their unique urban tourism destination to mitigate the conspicuous disappearance of the tourist during times of crisis.