Destination selection for education tourism service quality, destination image and perceived spirituality embedded model
Purpose – The purpose of this research is to empirically examine the critical factors that are influencing international students’ perception in the selection of a destination for education tourism. Design/methodology/approach – This research seeks to develop a comprehensive framework embedded wi...
| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English English |
| Published: |
Emerald Publishing Limited
2017
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://irep.iium.edu.my/56503/ http://irep.iium.edu.my/56503/ http://irep.iium.edu.my/56503/ http://irep.iium.edu.my/56503/1/56503-Destination%20selection%20for%20education%20tourism.pdf http://irep.iium.edu.my/56503/2/56503-Destination%20selection%20for%20education%20tourism_SCOPUS.pdf |
| Summary: | Purpose – The purpose of this research is to empirically examine the critical factors that are influencing
international students’ perception in the selection of a destination for education tourism.
Design/methodology/approach – This research seeks to develop a comprehensive framework
embedded with service quality, destination image and spirituality behavior. The data were collected by
administering a self-administered questionnaire to a sample of 220 respondents who were studying at the
universities in Peninsular Malaysia. The constructs and items used in the questionnaire were adapted from
the literature review. This research applied confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling to
test the proposed hypotheses.
Findings – The outcome of this research indicated that there is a substantial relationship between service
quality and the choice of a destination for education tourism. This research also explored that destination
brand image significantly relates to the selection of a destination for education, tourism when the destination
loyalty variable plays a strong mediation role. Interestingly, the direct relationship between spirituality
behavior and selection of destination was not significant. On the other hand, a significant relationship was
discovered between spirituality behavior and choice of destination when the tourists’ intention plays as a
mediating function.
Research limitations/implications – First, the limitation is in the scope of this study, as only five
constructs were examined. Future research may include other types of variables in exploring the antecedents
of destination selection for education tourism. Second, the sample size was only 220 and respondents were
restricted to only a few universities. Future research should be done on a bigger sample size and on more
diverse sample.
Practical implications – Managers of the respective higher learning institutions need to focus on
tourists’ satisfaction by providing a memorable experience. International students who have
satisfactory experience with the respective higher learning institutions will spread a positive word of
mouth about the destinations to other prospective foreign students. Today, tourists have a strong urge
to see the spiritual side of their liveliness. Policymakers need to offer services with the comportment of
the spiritual settings in their respective educational environment to extend the spiritual experience
toward international students.
Social implications – There is a need for more research on how to build a comprehensive model for
selection of a destination in educational tourism. The results of this empirical research are of particular
significance to policymakers, as it better informs them as to how best to use the antecedents in designing the destination choice for education tourism to establish it as more practical regardless of the diverse spiritual
beliefs.
Originality/value – This research is one of the initial attempts on part of the researchers in Malaysian
education tourism context where spirituality has been taken into consideration. |
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