Exploring the Factors Affecting Destination and Institutional Choice of Educational Tourists of Emerging Economies: The Case of Nigerian Students in North Cyprus

Substantial number of Nigerian educational tourists is travelling each year for tertiary education, making Nigeria a leading student exporting country in the world particularly in African continent. Although USA, Canada, UK, and Australia were the most common destinations, in recent years substantial number of educational tourists has also traveled to some other European and Asian countries. Recently North Cyprus has become an important destination for many Nigerian educational tourists despite its relatively young and developing tertiary sector. The research, aims to explore the factors affecting decisions of Nigerian educational tourists regarding study abroad from an educational tourism perspective. Knowledge about the reasons behind why Nigerian students have been increasingly enrolling to universities in North Cyprus is limited. Here it was aimed to make a contribution to the literature by thoroughly investigating this issue. Using the pull-push model, the researcher conducted a qualitative research to detect and examine factors influencing host country and host institution choices of Nigerian educational tourists and also to identify influences pushing them to seek for tertiary education opportunities elsewhere. The research identified four main categories of push-factors (family and peer influence, problems at local higher education system, problems at local higher education institutions, and personal reasons) that encourage and sometimes force the Nigerian educational tourists to seek for tertiary education alternatives outside their home country. Besides, six main categories of pull-factors (access, cultural factors, environmental factors, financial factors, plans for future, and influence of others) that attract Nigerian educational tourists to North Cyprus were identified. Finally, the research findings revealed that five main categories of factors (academic factors, admission, financial factors, influence of others, and language) influence the decision of Nigerian education tourists in selecting the host institution.