Marco Scholtz

Tourism is the world's third-largest industry, with a broad reach that encompasses nearly everyone. What fascinates Marco about tourism is the psychology of travel. As an enthusiastic traveller, he often wonders: What motivates people to leave home and journey to far-off places with unfamiliar cultures? What marketing campaigns resonate with them? What do local residents think of tourists? 

Marco's current research focuses on cultural heritage tourism and how it attracts visitors by combining various elements through technology, storytelling, and creative thinking. He is also interested in tourism's inclusivity, especially for people with learning disabilities because everyone should have the right to enjoy a holiday they can appreciate. 

Additionally, he has extensive experience in researching tourism's social effects and resident engagement, as well as travel behaviour and marketing analysis. During his Master's degree, completed in 2010, he studied the impact of the 2008/2009 recession on travel behaviour. For his PhD, completed in 2014, he developed a framework to measure the intangible and tangible social effects of tourism in a developing country. Although he is skilled in qualitative research, his speciality is quantitative research. 

Before joining Thomas More University College in March 2020, Marco was an Associate Professor at the North-West University in South Africa. Between 2012 and 2021, he published 20 peer-reviewed articles and presented his work at 16 international and 3 national conferences. He chose to move to a university college because he wanted his research to have a practical and tangible impact on society.