This study proposes a conceptual model that sheds light on how the destination image of emerging tourist destinations relates to tourism satisfaction and intention to subsequently recommend the place and purchase its products. Destination image is studied through three components – cognitive, affective, and unique. Unique image has been overlooked in previous research and few studies focus on its measurement. This study uses a new method of measuring it through text-mining of user-generated blog posts. Findings from a sample of 314 foreign visitors to Sofia, Bulgaria, reveal that the affective image influences tourist satisfaction and post-visit behaviour; the cognitive component has a significant effect on all the constructs, except for tourist satisfaction, whereas unique image only influences the intention to recommend and purchase destination country products. Joining together two streams of research, this study also argues that the intention to recommend a destination spot influences the intention to buy its products.

这项研究提出了一个概念模型，阐明了新兴旅游目的地的形象如何与旅游满意度和随后推荐该地点并购买其产品的意图有关。目标图像是通过三个组成部分进行研究的：认知，情感和独特性。以前的研究已经忽略了独特的图像，很少有研究关注其测量。这项研究使用了一种通过对用户生成的博客文章进行文本挖掘来衡量它的新方法。从对保加利亚索非亚的314名外国游客的抽样调查中发现，情感形象影响着游客的满意度和访问后的行为；除了游客满意度，认知成分对所有结构都有重要影响，而独特的形象只会影响推荐和购买目的地国家/地区产品的意图。结合两个研究流，该研究还认为，推荐目的地的意图会影响购买其产品的意图。