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
