Author Bios (50 Words for each Author)

Jun Shao is an associated professor at Beijing Forestry University and a visiting scholar at University of Guelph. Her research focuses on e-tourism, social media marketing and sustainable tourism.

Shan Yi is a content marketing planner at Trip.com Group, the second biggest online travel company around the world. Her main job is providing strategies and holding online & offline campaigns for domestic and overseas destinations to promote their travel products by content marketing on social media and Trip.com APP.

Ye (Sandy) Shen is interested in tourism experience design, experiential marketing, and technology applications in hospitality and tourism. She obtained a doctorate degree in Management from the University of Guelph and a master's degree in Urban and Regional Planning from Peking University. She also studied hotel and tourism management at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University.

Ulrike Gretzel is a Senior Fellow in Annenberg School of Communication and Journalism, University of Southern California, USA. Her research focuses on the impact of technology on human experiences and specifically looks at the structure of technology-mediated communication and persuasion in digital media.

Marion Joppe is a Professor in the School of Hospitality, Food and Tourism Management, University of Guelph, Canada. She specializes in destination planning, development and marketing.

Abstract (150 Words)

Emojis refer to popular emoticons that can spread quickly on social networks. This research investigated the impact of emoji design quality, the communication channel, and the familiarity with destinations on tourist perceptions of destination images. The hypotheses were tested by conducting an experiment in China in the context of emoji promotion about Finland. Results show that the design quality of emoji has a significant positive effect on destination images, while the communication channel is not an influential factor. In addition, the familiarity with destinations has an interaction effect with the communication channel, but it has no interaction effect with the design quality of emoji. The findings contribute to the literature on digital marketing and have practical implications for building positive destination image via emojis.

Download

Share

COinS
 

Research on the Influence of Emoji Communication on the Perception of Destination Image: The Case of Finland

Emojis refer to popular emoticons that can spread quickly on social networks. This research investigated the impact of emoji design quality, the communication channel, and the familiarity with destinations on tourist perceptions of destination images. The hypotheses were tested by conducting an experiment in China in the context of emoji promotion about Finland. Results show that the design quality of emoji has a significant positive effect on destination images, while the communication channel is not an influential factor. In addition, the familiarity with destinations has an interaction effect with the communication channel, but it has no interaction effect with the design quality of emoji. The findings contribute to the literature on digital marketing and have practical implications for building positive destination image via emojis.