International Student’s Satisfaction in Host Community

Higher education is seen nowadays as an international service industry (i.e. business activity) engaged by both public and private institutions. The sheer number as well as the growth rate of students in tertiary education indicate the increasing importance of the higher education sector and hence the need for systematic approach to achieve the goals of the participants in the industry (Gupta, 2005). International students studying in a foreign country are driven by various motives and hold different expectations (Wang, 2004). Basically, their motives can be classified into (a) seeking academic quality, and (b) seeking opportunities (such as employment, safety and welfare, experience and exposure). On the other hand, Service quality has become a requirement for all successful firms and organizations to remain competitive. Many researchers have emphasized the importance of quality improvement initiatives which have resulted in sustainable competitive advantage. Given that higher education is a service which students are now expected to fund for themselves at great expense, it has become an increasingly competitive market (Angell et al., 2008). The theory underlying this subject is customer satisfaction; hence we introduce customer satisfaction judgment as the result of the consumer‟s perception of the gap between their perceptions of performance and their prior expectations (Parasuraman et al., 1994). The difference between expected and perceived services is defined as a gap. Expectations are viewed as “normative expectations”, which means desires or wants of customers, i.e. what they feel a service provider should offer rather than iv would offer (Buttle, 1995) and perceptions is related to perceptions of performance. Bitner (1990), Bolton and Drew (1991) and Parasuraman et al. (1988) argued that customer satisfaction is an antecedent of service quality, while others believed that it is service quality that leads to customer satisfaction and behavioral intentions. The importance of student satisfaction will be apparent when responding to the question: “What are the consequences of students who are dissatisfied?” This work investigated the effect of external environment on international students‟ satisfaction in Eastern Mediterranean University, North Cyprus. By external environment we mean host community and by international students we mean long term tourists or academic tourists. In this study, we examined student‟s general satisfaction in four different factors such as, accommodation, employment, safety and life style, and hedonism. Results of the study shows that students are more satisfied with safety and lifestyle factor and least satisfied with employment. Keywords: international students, service quality, educational tourism, satisfaction.