Sara is a Professor of Marketing and Director of the Institute for Innovation in Business and Social Research, a University of Wollongong Research Strength. She holds a Bachelor/Masters and PhD degree (1996) in Business Administration from the Vienna University of Economics and Business and a Bachelor/Masters degree in Psychology from the University of Vienna. Her research interests are market segmentation methodology and measurement in the social sciences. She has primarily applied her work to tourism and social issues (environmental volunteering, foster care and public acceptance of water alternatives). Sara has (co-)authored more than 200 refereed papers, including 96 journal articles, half of which were published in A* or A journals. Publications She has (co-)authored 200 refereed papers, including 96 journal articles, half of which were published in A* or A journals. Sara’s work is widely cited. Her H-index of 21 (Publish or Perish, Harzing, 2010) places her among the more highly cited Australian marketing professors (median of 6, Razzaque & Wilkinson, 2007) and the most cited tourism researchers internationally (average of 13.7, McKercher, 2008). She won a number of best paper awards, the most prestigious being the Charles R. Goeldner Article of Excellence Award (Journal of Travel Research, 2004). Sara serves on a number of editorial boards, including those of the Journal of Travel Research (A*) and Annals of Tourism Research (A*). She serves as expert assessor for a number of grant schemes offered by the ARC and national research councils overseas.
Articles
Validly measuring destination image in survey studies (with Bettina Grun), Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive) (2013)
Destination image is among the most frequently measured constructs in empirical survey research. Academic tourism...
Attracting volunteers in highly multicultural societies: a marketing challenge (with Melanie J. Randle), Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive) (2012)
Volunteer managers face a typical marketing problem: how to identify the right consumers (in this...
Biclustering: overcoming data dimensionality problems in market segmentation (with Sebastian Kaiser, Katie Lazarevski, and Friedrich Leisch), Faculty of Commerce - Papers (2012)
Data-driven market segmentation is a popular and widely used segmentation method in tourism. It aims...
Community acceptance of recycled water - can we inoculate the public against scare campaigns? (with Byron Kemp, Melanie J. Randle, and Anna Hurlimann), Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive) (2012)
Without improved water resource management, it is predicted that water shortages will affect two-thirds of...
Harvesting the “business test trip†- converting business travelers to holidaymakers (with Gregory Kerr and Katie Cliff,), Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive) (2012)
Contributions to Books
Quality-of-life and travel motivations: integrating the two concepts in the Grevillea Model (with Katie Lazarevski and Venkata Yanamandram), Faculty of Commerce - Papers (2012)
Over the past three decades, two bodies of literature have developed relatively independently: Quality of...
Desalinated Versus Recycled Water – What Does the Public Think? (with A. Hurlimann), Faculty of Commerce - Papers (2010)
A survey study was conducted with 1495 Australians asking them about their likelihood of using...
Different Tourists - Different Perceptions of Different Cities Consequences for Destination Image Measurement and Strategic Destination Marketing (with T. Huybers), Faculty of Commerce - Papers (2010)
A destination marketing organization is charged with the task of convincingly appealing to potential visitors...
Tourism segmentation by consumer-based variables (with B. Kemp), Faculty of Commerce - Papers (2009)
The basis for successful marketing is to understand and satisfy consumer needs. Sometimes it is...
Cross-Cultural Comparisons of Tourist Satisfaction: Assessing Analytical Robustness, Faculty of Commerce - Papers (2008)
Response styles can distort survey findings. Culture-specific response styles (CSRS) are particularly problematic to cross-cultural...
Presentations
Three good reasons NOT to use factor-cluster segmentation (with Bettina Grun), Faculty of Commerce - Papers (2011)
Market segmentation is very popular both in tourism industry and among tourism researchers. Tourism industry...
Three good reasons NOT to use five and seven point Likert items (with Bettina Grun, Friedrich Leisch, and John Rossiter), Faculty of Commerce - Papers (2011)
One of the main sources of knowledge development in tourism has been survey research. Through...
An initial empirical guide to translating between different answer formats (with B. Grun and J. R. Rossiter), Faculty of Commerce - Papers (2010)
Surveys research remains the most popular source of market knowledge. Yet, there is not one...
Converting Business Travellers to Leisure Travellers (with G. Kerr and K. Lazarevski), Faculty of Commerce - Papers (2009)
The aim of this paper is to propose a novel strategy for attracting vacation tourists...
Measuring Segment Attractiveness (with K. Lazarevski), Faculty of Commerce - Papers (2009)
Market segmentation has been widely employed to give tourism destination planners market understanding, identify attractive...
Other
The influence of interactions between market segmentation strategy and competition on organizational performance – a simulation study (with R. Freitag), Faculty of Commerce - Papers (2003)
A computer simulation study is conducted to explore the interaction of alternative segmentation strategies and...