Marco Scholtz is a senior researcher in Innovative Tourism. He currently focuses on cultural heritage tourism and tourist accessibility. He is also a lecturer for the courses 'Tourism Research' and 'Tourism Destinations'.
Tourism is the third largest global industry (at least outside of COVID times) and includes almost every person. However, this is not the reason why I like doing tourism research. There is a kind of psychology behind the idea of travel and as I am also an avid traveler I have developed a strong fascination for this. Why do people leave their homes to travel to a distant land and be immersed in a foreign culture? What marketing messages attract people to destinations, what internal motives and behaviors drive them to these destinations? How do they know these places and what do they want to do there? What do the residents of these destinations think about the tourists? Does everyone get a chance to participate? These are the questions that drive my hunger for research and understanding the phenomenon of 'tourism'.
My current focus is on the different aspects of cultural heritage tourism: what are those components and what role do they play in attracting visitors and providing experiences? And: how to profile fully contextualized experiences by bringing components together through various means, such as technology, storytelling and creative thinking.
I also conduct research into the inclusiveness of tourism for people with intellectual disabilities – everyone has the right to a holiday and should be given the opportunity to fully enjoy it. I also have extensive experience in researching the social impacts of tourism and resident participation, travel motives and behaviour, as well as marketing analysis. In my Master (obtained in 2010), I investigated how the 2008/2009 recession affected travel behavior and in my PhD (obtained in 2014) I developed a framework for measuring the intangible and tangible social impacts of tourism in a developing country. Although I can do qualitative research, I specialize in quantitative research.
Prior to joining Thomas More College (from March 2020), I was an Associate Professor at North-West University in Potchefstroom, South Africa (I am a South African citizen). From 2012 to 2021 I have published 20 peer-reviewed articles within my research area and presented my research at 16 international and 3 national (South African) conferences. However, I felt that the research was being published and not being effectively implemented in wider society. That is why I chose to work at a university of applied sciences where research yields more practical, tangible differences.