Sebastian Zenker

Presentation

Sebastian achieved his doctoral degree at the University of Hamburg (Germany), where he also worked as an external Lecturer (2007–2010). He gained international experience as visiting scholar at the Erasmus University Rotterdam (Netherlands) where he worked as postdoctoral student and visiting Assistant Professor (2011–2014). Furthermore, he is a member of the interdisciplinary RespectResearchGroup and worked as a Senior Lecturer at the Technical University Berlin (Germany; 2013–2014).

In his current research, he concentrates on places as brands, place brand perception and on the management of place brands. Furthermore, he is interested in the field of tourism and destination branding, especially in the differences between the place perception between tourists and residents. Sebastian’s work was presented at various international conferences, book chapters, and peer-reviewed journals, such as the International Journal of Research in Marketing, Psychology & Marketing, or Environment and Planning A.

Primary research areas

• Place marketing and branding (e.g., city branding and nation branding)
• Tourism and destination brands
• Brand complexity and brand management
• Consumer research in the area of (brand) identification

Courses

• Marketing and Creative Processes
• City Branding and Tourism
• Scientific Marketing Project

Supervision

To insure an effective supervision, Sebastian is supervising a maximum of three master theses per year. He has supervised several theses at different universities (CBS, University of Hamburg and Erasmus University Rotterdam) and is currently only supervising place marketing and/or tourism topics. Due to his research background, he prefers more quantitative approaches. Furthermore, he only supervises in English.

If you want to suggest a master thesis topic, please write a short summery of your research question including an argumentation for its scientific relevance.