Examining Sojourners as Visual Influencers in VFR (Visiting Friends and Relatives) Tourism: A Rhetorical Analysis of User-Generated Images
研究旅居者（长期居住在外的人）在探亲访友旅游中发布的用户生成图片，分析其视觉修辞功能，发现旅居者不同于游客，能成为目的地针对这一重要旅游细分市场的在线影响者。
This study decodes the functions and meanings conveyed through sojourner user-generated images (UGI) and furthers the application of the theory of visual rhetoric to tourism by examining the online visual communications of sojourners—an understudied yet critical group of consumers and producers of tourism. A two-step qualitative mixed-method approach, involving expert interviews and visual rhetorical analysis of 453 sojourner UGI was adopted. Key findings resulted in the conceptualization of a theoretical framework that explains the construction of sojourner UGI. The framework identifies contemporary online visual culture, and the different frames sojourners move between (tourist, resident, home, and away) as factors that shape, and differentiate sojourner UGI from those of tourists. Collectively, the findings provide an initial understanding of sojourners as key visual influencers/online organic agents that offer destinations, specifically conurbations, the reach, relevance, and resonance in targeting the unique VFR segment, a key post-crises tourism segment.