The travel behaviour of international students: The relationship between studying abroad and their choice of tourist destinations
By I. Michael, Anona Armstrong, B. King. 2004
149 citations recorded by the source corpus.
This paper examines why international students opt for their chosen study destination. It also investigates their behaviour as tourists while studying, whether they hosted visits from friends or relatives and their overall economic contribution. The sample consisted of 600 international students studying in higher education institutions in Melbourne, Australia of which 219 responded. A stratified random sampling method was used with the key variables identified as country of origin, gender and university attended. Key questions included: What were the factors that prompted students to study in Australia? How did they become familiar with destinations and tourist attractions during the course of their studies? What tourist attractions and activities were most popular? It was discovered that word-of-mouth was the most significant medium of communication in the selection of educational destination. Most travel undertaken during the period of enrolment was for private purposes. The most popular Melbourne attraction was the Queen Victoria Market and The Great Ocean Road was the most popular attraction statewide. The study also found that tourism related activities undertaken by overseas students contributed approximately A$8.2m to the economy of the state of Victoria. The figure more than doubles to approximately A$17.2m if the expenditures of visiting friends and relatives (VFRs) are included.
Subfields: Demography, Sociology and Political Science, Tourism, Leisure and Hospitality Management
View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/0e029208becc23bda01ae02e57d64ecd44b1f668
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In Demography
In Sociology and Political Science
In Tourism, Leisure and Hospitality Management
Citations in the corpus
- International university students’ travel risk perceptions: an exploratory study (2018, background): “Previous research on the student travel has examined the relationship between students’ travel preferences and studying abroad (Michael et al., 2003; Ryan & Zhang, 2006), perceived value and students’ travel preferences (Gallarza & Gil Saura, 2006; Kim & Jogaratnam, 2002), cultural influences and…”
- Educational Tourism and Local Development: The Role of Universities (2020, background): “Other factors include the safety and political stability of the destination, its cultural and touristic attractions, the events and leisure activities offered, the weather, the natural environment and the local lifestyle [2,8,51,52].”