Emerging Scholar Profile- Dr Ina Reichenberger

Abstract

Dr Ina Reichenberger is a lecturer in tourism management at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand, where she focuses on social interactions in tourism, value co-creation and lifestyle travel.

Ina’s PhD was awarded from Victoria University of Wellington in 2014, titled ‘Social interactions between international visitors in New Zealand – Contacts, processes and impacts’. The thesis explored social interactions between international visitors in New Zealand, thus addressing a topic that, despite its known relevance, has received only little attention. Through adopting a complex three-staged qualitative approach analysed both qualitatively and quantitatively, this research was the first to explore the complexity, multidimensionality and contribution of social contacts in relation to the tourist experience, simultaneously addressing the tourist-focused relationships of value co-creation and the impact of interactions with other visitors on the perception of products, services and destinations.

Results from this research have been published in the International Journal of Tourism Research (Reichenberger, 2017a) and Tourist Studies (Reichenberger, 2017b) and show that value co‐creation is not necessarily dependent upon the underlying social interactions but predominantly influenced by personal factors and attitudes towards sociability. The stronger the focus on other social actors is and the longer and more personal the social interactions are, the more complex and multi-layered is the co‐created perceived value.

More recently, Ina’s research centres on selected aspects of lifestyle travel. One stream of research explores new conceptualizations of backpacking experiences, building upon previous work on motivational segmentations for her Masters thesis. Furthermore, she has a strong interest in the phenomenon of digital nomads. Through a social constructivist research paradigm, her work conceptualizes digital nomads by establishing the first academic definition, further exploring their motivations for adapting a travel based lifestyle and how these are addressed in practice (Reichenberger, 2018). In doing so, the blurred boundaries between work, leisure and travel are dissected and interpreted, providing essential insight for future developments and trends in travel and tourism due to changes in ICTs, personal values and working arrangements. Upcoming work will continue to focus on tourist experiences for digital nomads, taking into account insights regarding lifestyle mobilities.

Prior to her move to New Zealand, Ina received a Masters degree in Sociology from the University of Salzburg, Austria, followed by a Masters in International Travel and Tourism Management from Oxford Brookes University, UK. She then worked as a research fellow in tourism market research and consultancy for the University of Passau, Germany, where she was conducting annual benchmarking guest surveys for several regions within Bavaria and conducted feasibility analyses and destination development plans. After her PhD, Ina spent two years as a senior lecturer in tourism business studies at MCI Management Center Innsbruck, Austria. During her time at MCI she taught predominantly classes in destination management and research methods, and she was the module coordinator for academic research.

Ina is currently a member of the CAUTHE executive committee, an editorial board member for the Journal of Tourism Futures and organizes a regular seminar series. At Victoria University she teaches tourist behaviour and tourism research, especially enjoying the ability to support students in conducting real and immediately applicable research in cooperation with tourism industry partners. Ina plans to extend her postgraduate certificate in Higher Education Learning and Teaching to create increasingly engaging and inclusive learning experiences. She is also becoming more involved in the university’s efforts of inclusive teaching and is beginning to contribute to initiatives that will benefit especially students from lower socio-economic backgrounds and the university’s LGBTQI+ community.

When not experiencing writer’s guilt, Ina volunteers for the local SPCA and enjoys hiking and photography.

References

Reichenberger, I. (2017a). C2C value co-creation through social interactions in tourism. International Journal of Tourism Research, 19(6), 629-638.

Reichenberger, I. (2017b). Why the host community just isn’t enough: Processes and impacts of backpacker social interactions. Tourist Studies, 17(3), 263-282.

Reichenberger, I. (2018). Digital nomads – a quest for holistic freedom in work and leisure. Annals of Leisure Research, 21(3), 364-380.