Jessika’s undergraduate research has taken her to Valais, Switzerland where she examined the application of mobile technologies in hiking and cycling tourism. Her research was a collaboration project with the University of Applied Sciences Western Switzerland and the University of Applied Sciences Schmalkalden from which she holds a Diploma in Business Administration.

Afterwards, Jessika worked for three years as an Online Marketing Manager in one of the leading IT service organisation in tourism in Germany, developing e-tourism software solutions (websites, meta searches) for destinations and other tourism service providers all across Germany and Austria.

To expand her skills and research interest in the field of eTourism, Jessika decided to start her master’s programme in Innovation and Management in Tourism at the University of Applied Sciences Salzburg which she successfully accomplished recently. Her dissertation approached the topic Near Field Communication in Tourism and outlined scenarios how NFC-enabled virtual destination cards can be implemented in a tourism destination.

Jessika is currently a PhD research student at the School of Tourism, Bournemouth University. The topic of her PhD research is Augmented Reality Gaming: A Paradigm in Tourist Experience?