Motivational Factors for International Students-A Comparative Study: The Case of North Cyprus

Educational tourism is one of the most demanded sectors in tourism industry. Edu-tourism has variety of forms and models, all edu-tourism forms hast some in common parts. Traveling not only help self-improvement and self-change, also it will bring peace and relaxation. Education at the same time with traveling and changing environment can be fun and full of joy. This type of education and learning can be enjoyable for any ages. The focus of this study is to explore and examine the motivational factors for international students. There are several types of factors that are important for students also these factors for students in terms of priority and importance depends on their countries and their cultures plus what students wants from the destination. This comparative quantitative study is applied to investigate the topic through questionnaire from students from Iran and African countries that are studying in Eastern Mediterranean University, to realize that what factors are important for students from which countries. The questionnaire was separated in 8 different part and factors; cost, quality, environmental, regulatory, cultural, political, safety and social factors. In addition, the study discovered that most students are agree with environmental factors as the motivational factors and almost 50 percent are disagree or strongly disagree with political as a motivational factor. Also safety and regulatory factors have the neutral importance among other factors. Keywords: tourism, educational tourism, motivational factor, studying abroad, case of TRNC.