Can Investor Involvement Beat Public Health Crisis? The impact of Neutral Sentiment on Tourism Firms’ Stock Returns

Neutral investor sentiment, as the largest proportion of online financial discourse, is underexplored, especially in the high-volatility tourism sector. This study investigates the impact of investor neutral sentiment on tourism firm stock returns and examines the boundary conditions imposed by user involvement and macro-level public health crises. Utilizing text mining on 1.83 million investor reviews for listed tourism firms from 2015 to 2023, this study employs fixed-effects panel regression to test the direct and moderating effects. The results reveal that investor neutral sentiment has a significantly positive effect on tourism stock returns, acting as a rationality signal that reduces information asymmetry. User involvement strengthens this effect, as “deliberative neutrality” from high-involvement investors carries higher source credibility. Notably, while public health crises generally attenuate the positive impact of neutral sentiment by introducing systemic noise, neutral sentiment from high-involvement investors exhibits remarkable informational resilience, serving as a “shielding effect” that anchors market expectations during periods of extreme uncertainty.