“Massive” tourism potential from international students

If overseas students are an untapped tourism market, what about their friends and relatives? The contribution of international students to Australia’s tourism industry may have been underestimated, with indications that they could lure a million or more friends and family members to Australia each year. But the tourism industry may not be doing enough to capitalise on this market, according to a landmark survey of international students’ travelling activities. Brian King, tourism professor at Victoria University (VU) and a member of the research team, said friends and family of international students arguably constituted a bigger tourism market than the students themselves. Of around 6000 international students who responded to the survey, 58 per cent said friends or relatives had already visited them in Australia. Around 85 per cent said they expected visits at some time during their studies, and around a quarter said they expected five or more visitors. According to the survey, the typical international student expects two visitors from home while studying in Australia. This is much higher than previous estimates of one visitor for every two students. Given that there were around 630,000 people in Australia last year on student visas, visiting friends and relatives could number around 1.25 million. “It’s a massive number,” said King, who’s also acting pro vice-chancellor (industry and community) at VU. He said 80 per cent of Chinese, Indian and Korean respondents had expected friends or family to attend their graduation ceremonies. These graduations aren’t small affairs, with RMIT University for example holding its ceremonies at Etihad Stadium in Docklands. “You get a whole stadium full of people, of whom a large proportion are friends and family from overseas. Even as a point of contact, graduations would be a way of presenting [tourism] opportunities to visiting friends and relatives.” King said the typical Chinese friend or relative stayed in Australia for one to two weeks, while Indians stayed longer – most for at least a fortnight and 40 per cent for over a month. But he said they were a challenging group to market to “because it’s not necessarily through the traditional travel industry channels”. “There’s a whole history of tourism organisations in Australia looking at the friends and relatives market and seeing it as a bit too hard.” But he said tourism operators could make direct approaches to the students or to their visitors, or explore electronic marketing or social networking through ethnic organisations. “There’s an opportunity for tourism authorities to work more closely with education providers to get access to students’ friends and relatives,” he said. King said tourism and hospitality operators needed to understand the characteristics of the different markets, with Chinese visitors often booking into commercial accommodation, while many Indians preferred to stay with friends or family. Significant cultural differences also apply to students themselves, King said. While students from Europe and North America might be enthusiastic budget travellers, King said there was little interest in backpacker accommodation among Asians. Two thirds of the respondents said they preferred hotels, motels or holiday apartments. Only 22 per cent said they opted for backpacker hostels and just 6 per cent for camping. “One of the things we wanted to do was get beyond the stereotypes of international students all being the same, and understand that they have very different behavioural patterns and interests,” King said. “We certainly found there was great interest in travelling around Australia, and a lot of travel taking place, but there are barriers. There’s scope for more tailored packages or products.” King said that while most international education providers highlighted Australia’s attractiveness in their marketing material, many didn’t do much to facilitate travel for students or their visitors. And while some universities had travel agency outlets on campus, this didn’t apply to small inner city colleges. He said there was also more scope to explore the educational opportunities posed by tourists. “In terms of numbers, international education is miniscule compared with international tourism – but these two things will increasingly intersect. Several million tourists visit Australia, and there is no question that travellers are interested in learning of some kind. Exposing them to educational opportunities here might be a way of encouraging repeat business – maybe they’ll come back as investors, or to attend conferences, or to do courses.” The research was conducted by six academics from four universities in Queensland, NSW and Victoria. Their report, ‘International education visitation – tourism opportunities’, is available through the Sustainable Tourism Cooperative Research Centre. It includes data on students’ travel plans and habits, their transport preferences and their perceptions on issues from safety to shopping hours, among other things. King said the survey had been the most comprehensive of its kind, with respondents from over 50 countries who studied in Australia’s higher education, VET and English language sectors. However it was skewed to higher education in the south-eastern states, with three quarters or more from NSW and Victorian universities. King said a seminar at Victoria University last month had underlined the need for still more refined insights into international students and their visitors. He also acknowledged a “blurring of the edges” of data on tourism and international education. “We need to treat the numbers with a little bit of caution,” he said. But he said the research supported the ball park estimates of international education’s economic contribution. While some commentators have suggested that much of this contribution involves students spending money they’ve earned in Australia – and therefore shouldn’t be considered export income – King said the survey had found that this only accounted for about a sixth of international students’ total spending.