Marketa Kubickova, Ph.D., Assistant Professor

Dr. Kubickova was born in the Czech Republic (former Czechoslovakia). She obtained her doctoral degree from the University of Central Florida. Prior to that, she received her Bachelor of Science in Hotel, Restaurant and Tourism Management from University of New Orleans and her Master of Business Administration from Florida Atlantic University.

Prior to joining academia, she held a number of managerial positions in several upscale international hotels (Four Seasons, The Breakers Resort in Palm Beach, and The Boca Raton Resort and Spa in Boca Raton). Because of her extensive hotel experience, she has been able to teach a range of hospitality management courses at the University of Central Florida and now at the University of South Carolina. She has primarily taught Hotel Management, Advance Hotel Management, Guest Service Management, and Introduction into Hospitality.

Her research interests mainly focus on competitiveness, hotel sustainability, and the role of government, with special emphasis on developing countries. She has over fifteen international conference presentations and some of her current work include: ‘Corruption, destination competitiveness and hotel performance in developing economies’, ‘Human agency shaping tourism competitiveness and quality of life in developing economies’, and ‘Tourism competitiveness, government and TALC model: The evolution of Costa Rica, Guatemala, and Honduras’. In addition, she has two book chapters (one in Czech and one in English) that are currently in press titled: ‘The various faces of competitiveness in tourism: A survey of the extant literature’ and ‘Hotel management in the context of tourism in the USA’. In addition, she has obtained a grant to investigate the opportunity for development of agro-tourism in Honduras. Lastly, Dr. Kubickova is an ad-hock reviewer for over seven international hospitality and tourism journals.

In 2014, she was certified in Hotel Business Acumen (HBA) by the Board of REDGlobal Group and in 2011 received Educator Teaching Certification from the University of Central Florida. She has placed second with her students in an international ‘RevSim’ competition conducted by REDGlobal. She is a member of American Hotel and Lodging Association (AHandLA), Women in Lodging (WIL), and a member of academic honor society Delta Epsilon Iota.

Dr. Kubickova’s research interests include competitiveness, sustainability, and tourism economics in developing countries.