Purpose: By conducting a longitudinal study, this study aims to investigate how the role of hotel attributes in destination competitiveness changed through the stages of pre-, amid and recovery from the crisis. Design/methodology/approach: First, the latent Dirichlet allocation method was used to identify hotel attributes from 15,137 online reviews, and then a sentiment analysis was performed to determine tourist satisfaction with the subject attributes. Second, separate asymmetric impact competitor analyses were conducted for the three stages of the crisis, and their results were compared with understand how the role of the hotel attributes changed throughout the crisis. Findings: The results revealed that the impacts of hotel attributes on tourist satisfaction and destination competitiveness differed significantly at each stage of the crisis. Research limitations/implications: This research expands the existing literature by offering valuable insights by elucidating the changing characteristics of hotel attributes at each crisis stage. The results extend the body of knowledge in destination management by providing evidence on the validity of asymmetric impact competitor analysis. Originality/value: To fully understand the impact of a crisis (e.g. COVID-19) on destination competitiveness with a focus on the hotel sector, this research conducted a longitudinal study that covers three stages of the crisis (i.e. pre-, amid and post-crisis). Moreover, unlike previous studies, this research considers the asymmetric relationships between service attributes and overall tourist satisfaction, as well as competitors’ information.