Mar 8, 2017 - students' mobility, revealing that tourism attributes of the host country ... educational exchange (push factors), than the pull factors (e.g., the host ...
STUDY AND TRAVEL: STUDENTS’ PERCEPTIONS ON THE IMPORTANCE OF TOURISM IN MOBILITY S. Filipe1, B. Barbosa1, C. Amaral Santos2, M. Pinheiro3, D. Simões4, G. Paiva Dias5 1 Aveiro Institute of Accounting and Administration, University of Aveiro (ISCA-UA) and GOVCOPP Research Unit on Governance, Competitiveness and Public Policies (PORTUGAL) 2
Aveiro Institute of Accounting and Administration, University of Aveiro (ISCA-UA) and CLLC Languages, Literatures and Cultures Research Centre (PORTUGAL)
3
Aveiro Institute of Accounting and Administration, University of Aveiro (ISCA-UA) and CIDTFF Research Centre Didactics and Technology in Education of Trainers (PORTUGAL)
4
Aveiro Institute of Accounting and Administration, University of Aveiro (ISCA-UA) and CIC.DIGITAL/Digimedia - Digital Media and Interaction (PORTUGAL)
Águeda School of Technology and Management, University of Aveiro (ESTGA-UA) and GOVCOPP Research Unit on Governance, Competitiveness and Public Policies (PORTUGAL) 5
Abstract This research aims to explore the importance of tourism activities for student mobility, considering the decision process, the experience of the students while on mobility, and their loyalty to the host region, including their cooperation in promoting local attractions among relatives and friends. We present qualitative results obtained from focus groups with Erasmus students from diverse countries inside and outside Europe, who spent at least one semester in the University of Aveiro, Portugal. The discussions explored students’ perceptions, experiences and practices before and during the mobility. Our results include evidence on how traveling opportunities are an inherent part of Erasmus students’ mobility. Overall, their tourist activities are shown as strong enhancers of the learning process while on mobility, despite competing with limited resources of time and money. Traveling is also an opportunity to spend time with family and friends, namely with other mobility students at the same host university, fostering integration and a higher degree of satisfaction with the mobility experience. In turn, the extended exposure to a different language and culture transform mobility students into ideal ambassadors of the host country, contributing significantly to the promotion of their mobility destinations. Keywords: Erasmus mobility program, student’s mobility, academic tourism, educational tourism.
1
INTRODUCTION
Erasmus is the most successful mobility initiative in the world, reaching an impressive figure of more than 200,000 students annually. According to data available for the academic year 2012-13 [1], a total of 33 countries took part in the programme (the 27 EU Member States, Croatia, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, Switzerland and Turkey). Spain was the most popular destination, followed by France and Germany. The average age of Erasmus students was 22.5 years and the average duration of student exchanges was 6 months. In terms of subject areas and languages of study, students of social sciences, business and law made up the biggest share of those on exchange. Every second student used English as their main language for studying abroad and 5 other languages were used as a main language in 40% of the cases (Spanish, French, German, Italian and Portuguese). The Erasmus mobility programme contributes to achieve one of the objectives of the Bologna Process, which aims to improve the mobility of students within the European Union. It has revealed itself as very beneficial for students and HEI (Higher Education Institutions) within the member countries, and it expects to promote tourism across Europe and beyond. Several studies [e.g., 2, 3] identified a link between international studying and traveling for exchange students. In a context where both students’ mobility and tourism industry are growing, it is important to further understand the possible connections between the two, for building an effective education and tourism synergy.
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Extant literature provides rich and interesting details on the motivations, facilitators and obstacles to students’ mobility, revealing that tourism attributes of the host country and city are inherent to students’ decision, including the climate, accessibilities, culture, and local attractions, complemented with other factors such as cost of living and the reputation of the university [4]. Glover [5] observed that tourism images and travel motivations influence the choice of a foreign study location. Although the factors related to tourism destination attributes are widely accepted as being part of the decision process and the experience of mobility students, they have been disregarded as a main topic of research; however, their importance for mobility students and for hosting HEI communication strategies seems to be growing. Traveling while on mobility is an immanent part of students’ experience, granting them the invaluable opportunity of getting acquainted with the language, culture, history and traditions of the host country. Admittedly, traveling itself is recognized as one of the most important ways of developing international and cross-cultural perspectives [6]. In this research we followed a combination of literature contributions on tourism destinations and students’ mobility, including studies on academic and educational tourism. Based on the insights found in the literature, we conducted a series of focus groups in order to further explore the relationship between Erasmus mobility and academic tourism. The research objectives included contributing to evaluating the importance of traveling among Erasmus students and identifying the impact of the traveling activities during mobility in Erasmus students’ learning process. The paper also provides a better understanding of the implications of traveling at cultural, social and skillsdevelopment levels, as well as at the dynamics of HEI. Limitations and suggestions for future research are also provided.
2
LITERATURE REVIEW
The international student market is an important contributor for regional and domestic tourism [7]. Indeed, studying abroad programs are key international tourism activities with significant economic and social impact because the duration of stay by students is normally longer than the duration of holiday stay by typical tourists [8, 9]. Tourism comprises “the activities of people travelling to and staying in places outside their usual environment for not more than one consecutive year for leisure, business and other purposes” [10]. According to this notion, all students taking study abroad experiences for less than one year are tourists, because they travel to a destination to participate in formal learning at a host university [11], while several authors highlight that the other reasons considered in tourism definition include studying [e.g., 9, 12]. Different terminologies are used by researchers when referring to tourism in the context of studies abroad. According to Kelly and Brown [13] an educational tourist is “a person who travels to an attraction or destination and participates, formally or informally, in a learning experience available there”. More recently Rodríguez, et al. [9] defined academic tourism as “all stays lasting less than one year and carried out in higher education institutions outside the person’s usual environment. The main purpose of such a stay would be to complete university degrees and/or attend language courses organized by these schools.” Concepts such as academic tourism or educational tourism stress the intertwining emotions that may support the decision to engage in a mobility experience, national or international.
2.1
The desire to travel among the several motivations for students' mobility
The study abroad experience has a multifaceted nature, as it usually combines classroom formal education, exposure to another culture, inter-personal contact, traveling and other touristic activities [14]. It is widely accepted in the tourism literature the push-pull model for studying tourist motivations [15, 16], thus most of the studies related to this topic suggest a combination of pull-push factors that influence abroad decision-making process [e.g., 17, 18, 19]. According to Mazzarol and Soutar [17] push factors “operate within the source country and initiate a student’s decision to undertake international study”; while pull factors “operate within a host country to make that country relatively attractive to international students”. These authors suggest that students are initially motivated to undertake study overseas, and only afterwards they choose the host country and the host university. In the same line, Llewellyn!Smith and McCabe [2] found that students’ desire to travel, together with the opportunity for fun and social interaction are more important motivators for undertaking an educational exchange (push factors), than the pull factors (e.g., the host country’s weather, natural
environment and tourist attractions). Clearly, extant literature exposes the complexity of the decision process for student mobility, comprising a wide range of factors that ultimately are considered by each student during his/her decision process, in which the tourism destination attributes play a relevant part. In fact, the desire to travel is not a recent motivation for students' mobility, but has become more relevant in recent years. In the 90's this motivation already stood out as one of the main factors for students' mobility. Maiworm and Teichler [20] itemize the following top seven reasons that had a strong influence on ERASMUS students' decision to study abroad (in 1998–99): 1
Learning a foreign language (87%);
2
Opportunity for self-development (idem 87%);
3
Wish to gain academic learning experience in another country (82%);
4
Wish to improve understanding of the host country (73%);
5
Wish to improve career prospects (71%);
6
Wish to travel (71%);
7
Wish for a break from usual surroundings (66%).
As observed, the desire to travel was stated equally often by the 1998-99 students than the "wish to improve career prospects". According to Teichler [21], these results highlight that students expect the four major benefits of temporary study abroad (academic, cultural, linguistic and professional benefits), but they desire combining them with an appealing extracurricular life during the period they spend abroad. More recently, Lesjak, et al. [6] identified the mobility and destination choice motives of Erasmus students from 26 European countries: professional and personal growth on one side, and destinations' degree of attraction on the other. Moreover, Van Maele, et al. [4] revealed that the main factors highlighted by students for a successful stay abroad experience were: language and communication, social contacts, practicalities, personal development, academic advantages, and travel. It is important to note that travel and tourism influence both the decision of the destination of mobility (antecedents & motivators) and the success of that mobility (outcomes & benefits).
2.2
Students' mobility: education or tourism first?
Ritchie [22] proposed a model of a continuum from “education first” to “tourism first”. The category of “education first” contains the students whose motivations are primarily of educational or learning components, while the category of “tourism first” contains the students for whom travel is the primary motivator. Ritchie [22] stated that long-term students may be more likely to place “education first” as the main goal, while educational visitors may be more likely to place as goal “tourism first”. Nevertheless, Glover [5] found some differences among full-degree students and suggested the need to revisit the conclusions previously postulated by Ritchie [22]. María Cubillo, et al. [23] suggested a theoretical model that integrates the following groups of factors that influence the decision-making process of international students: personal reasons, country image, institution image, programme evaluation. According to the authors, the students’ perception about the destination city as well as the country image will influence the decision process. The destination image and personality are related concepts [24, 25] and both have positive effects on the relationship between tourist and destination, which in turn affect tourist behaviour [26]. Moreover, the overall destination image has a big impact on tourist loyalty [27] and is a significant mediator between brand associations (cognitive, affective, and unique image components) and tourists’ future behaviours (intentions to revisit and recommend) [28]. In turn, Baharun, et al. [29] identified the following ranking of seven factors of choice criteria by international students: quality learning environment, decision influencers, customer focus, and cost of education, facilities, location and socialization. Regarding decision influencers, word of mouth seems to account for an important part in the equation (e.g. friends, parents, internet, education agent, teachers, others student, alumni). The personal recommendations or word-of-mouth referrals of former alumni are probably the key attributes inherent to students’ decision [17]. The push and pull theory demonstrates the crossing of influences between students' decision process and destinations' ability to capture the spirit of mobility.
3
METHODOLOGY
Taking into account the contributions explored in the literature review and the proposed research objectives, a qualitative exploratory approach was adopted with the purpose of collecting students’ views on their traveling experiences while they were on mobility. The questions proposed for discussion included, among others, what factors were considered when choosing Aveiro as a destination, whether Erasmus was an important traveling opportunity, how much did they travel while on mobility and if traveling was regarded as an enhancer of the learning experience. To this end, three focus groups were conducted, comprising a total of 15 students on mobility in the University of Aveiro in the Fall/Winter semester 2016. The focus groups where held in mid-December, therefore the participants had been in Aveiro for three months and about to conclude their exchange semester. The participants were both males and females, mostly from Europe but also from Asia and America, including students on their first mobility and students with prior experiences of studying abroad. Their ages varied between 21 and 36 (table 1). Table 1. Sample characteristics Focus group
Gender
Continent
Country
Age
First Mobility Experience?
1
female
Europe
Czech Republic
22
yes
1
female
Europe
Czech Republic
22
yes
1
female
Europe
Italy
23
yes
1
female
Europe
Latvia
22
yes
1
female
Europe
Poland
21
yes
1
female
Europe
Poland
21
yes
2
female
America
--
21
no
2
male
America
--
22
no
2
female
Europe
Spain
22
yes
2
male
Europe
Spain
22
no
3
male
Asia
--
36
no
3
female
Europe
Italy
23
yes
3
male
Europe
Italy
26
no
3
male
Europe
Poland
25
yes
3
male
Europe
Romania
24
no
Although the study used a convenience sampling method, groups were created in order to meet a balanced homogeneity and heterogeneity of participants within groups. Focus group 1 (FG1) comprises only females on their first mobility experience, focus group 2 (FG2) had only Spanish language natives, and focus group 3 (FG3) was composed of the oldest participants in this study.
4
RESULTS
The rise in students’ mobility is associated to the interest for education in a global context [9], which includes learning new languages, experiencing other cultures and making new friends. Still, prospect mobility students consider the attributes of the destination as being relevant aspects in the selection of the host university. When they were asked about the motivations for choosing the University of Aveiro as a destination, the participants referred immediately the climate and the beaches, infrastructures, as well as socio-economic and cultural environments (good value for money, safety and easy accessibilities). These factors are closely related to the ones generally considered by tourists, and associated to the tourism destination image, as conceptualized by San Martín and Del Bosque [30].
4.1 Deciding the destination In line with findings of Baharun, et al. [29], the decision process included checking the university website and other webpages related to the location, as well as information from former mobility students: “a lot of my friends came here before” (FG1). One important part was seeing pictures of Aveiro and Portugal, which were said to make a huge impact on the candidates: “when I searched Aveiro I was impressed [by the pictures] (!) you cannot imagine how beautiful it is!” (FG2). Overall, the discussions provided evidence on the importance of the tourism destination attributes to the choice of the location for Erasmus mobility. Rodríguez, et al. [9] argue that the promotion of an academic destination must have the collaboration of the entities responsible for the local tourism, in order to nurture a tourism segment that complements other consolidated tourism segments, and that foreign students should be offered adequate support in order to enhance their essential role played in wordof-mouth communication. Thus, according to these authors, several agents help attract new academic tourists to a region, and not the University alone. Regarding Aveiro, one of its particularities is having the ocean nearby. Participants explained that “[when I was deciding where to go] I saw pictures of the beach” (FG1), and emphasized that “the coastline is beautiful to visit” (FG3). One of the participants coming from Czech Republic shared that “I decided to spend the whole winter in here [near the ocean]. (!) I wanted to try surfing and my dream came true” (FG3). Thus, the Erasmus mobility was accepted as an opportunity to travel and to enjoy different weather and new leisure and sport activities, which were mentioned by the participants as being part of the strongest aspects of their mobility, as well as relevant during their decision process. The expectations on the host city and country were confirmed during the Erasmus mobility, namely the easy accessibilities: “Here we have many opportunities to travel, it is so easy, and it’s easy to find someone who wants to travel because everyone wants to travel" (FG1). The participants expressed a great integration among Erasmus students, clearly higher than with local students, similar to extant results obtained by Rodríguez, et al. [9]. Mostly they plan and travel within Erasmus students’ groups. Moreover, the participants confirmed that on their arrival they found exactly what they expected: a small and beautiful city, friendly and helpful residents, and nice weather, in accordance with what María Cubillo, et al. [23] had previously highlighted: the strong influence of city and country image on the decision process.
4.2 Traveling experience while on mobility In one of the discussions the participants concluded that one of the strongest aspects of the mobility experience was traveling: “We have traveled all around Portugal and we have seen many many places already” (FG3). Traveling is part of the integration process and also a way to develop relationships among the Erasmus students “We travel a lot (!) the whole country (!) It is connecting people because we travel in similar groups (!) so it was a good thing that happened here” (FG3). According to the discussions, all Erasmus students want to travel: “In the group someone asked: Hey, who wants to go to the Azores, and you got a very long list of candidates” (FG1). By the time of the data collection the participants had been in Erasmus mobility for three months, and most agreed that they traveled a lot in Portugal during that period, covering the main touristic attractions of the country, including the archipelagos of Madeira and Azores. Students also mentioned to have visited neighbor countries such as Spain and Morocco. They emphasized the low costs but also the location of the destination: “the location is good too for traveling” (FG1); "we want to know other countries in Europe... and that is possible because of the good location of Portugal" (FG2). Again, this reflects important image attributes that are relevant to the decision process of tourists in general (as for instance conceptualized by Chen and Phou [26] and Qu, et al. [28]), and also relevant to students, considering their wanting to visit the country and its surroundings during the mobility. The participants considered traveling as a “unique opportunity”, as agreed by one of the groups of participants: “This is the only opportunity [in my life] to visit Portugal so closely! so we want to do it as good as we can” (FG3). Across focus groups the theme was discussed with enthusiasm, and some participants mentioned traveling together, either in organized trips or by themselves: "One of the Erasmus brought his car here and it was! it was such a great idea!" (FG3). While they narrated traveling experiences during the mobility, some traveling plans were also shared. A group of participants mentioned that they intended to stay in Portugal during the Christmas break to travel around Portugal, while others confirmed that they expected to travel more and visit other Portuguese locations before going home. In another discussion the same idea of staying longer to
travel around was shared: “In summer we are planning to tour the Portuguese coastline, Spain, and maybe to Madeira too!” (FG2).
4.3 Destination ambassadors According to Rodríguez, et al. [9], one of the particularities of academic tourism is the ability of the students to generate new visits during their stay, namely of their family and friends. Our findings corroborate this idea. The participants of this study stated that they received family and friends who came to visit them, which also increased the opportunities to travel around and get to know some of Portugal’s attractions: “my friends came to Aveiro [and then] we went to Lisbon and Porto” (FG1). Thus, while they are on mobility, they act as destination ambassadors in several ways: "our sisters are anxious to know Portugal ... our parents want to come too" (FG2). These results are similar to the ones provided by Rodríguez, et al. [9], who also found that in Santiago de Compostela most Erasmus incoming received family and friends during their mobility. Besides inviting family and friends who they show around and travel with, they also showcase the tourism attractions on their social network site pages, as they often post images of the host city but also of the places they visit in their traveling activities: “I’m sharing the pictures on Facebook so everyone can see where I am and what I do" (FG1); “I post photos of the places I visit on Facebook and Instagram. To the closest people I send photos and videos by personal messages” (FG1); “They love to see my pictures, I share them all!” (FG2). Students considered that sharing photos on social media was a way to be in touch with their connections, but also consciously promoting the tourism destination: “(...) if they like it they will want to visit too!” (FG2). Overall, the participants agreed they share a lot of their mobility experience using social media, emails and current conversations with athome friends and family: “I can learn a lot about other cultures and I share it with my friends and my family” (FG3).
4.4 Knowledge and skills developed with the traveling activities Traveling is an important way to get to know the culture, and culture involves much more than sightseeing. It is a way of experiencing things in a different perspective, of immersing oneself in routines, of overcoming barriers and sharing points of view, resulting in a richer, more tolerant and cooperative attitude, values that are at the base of any learning experience. This research provided significant evidence of skills development related to students' traveling activities, as their eagerness to travel made them improve their time and money management skills: “you have enough time for everything! study, help others, go out!” (FG2); "you just have to organize yourself" (FG2), while other student mentioned “I try not to spend and travel”. (FG3). Participants mentioned using weekends to travel to the near cities in the country: “I went many times to Porto just to spend the weekend”, but also managing their time in order to be able to travel while studying in Portugal: “I did not miss classes so much, maybe few, 3 or 4 days! but the biggest part was for traveling for sure. I feel I can do both” (FG1). Another group mentioned that classes are the main reason that they don’t travel that much: “The group that I did here cannot find the days to go somewhere! I would like to travel more!” (FG3).
4.5 Being an Erasmus During the discussions the participants argued about the nature of being an Erasmus and its close relation to traveling, as it was expressed in a dialogue in Focus group 3: The purpose is not so much to study but for instance to travel! I travel much more here than I would have if I studied here (!) And the professors understand what it actually means to be an Erasmus student. It is one of the important aspects when you go to Erasmus, traveling is the second or the first most important, so I came here also with the point of traveling but I came to visit Portugal, then I’ll go to some other places. That’s what I came for. And it’s so easy to go around, it’s so easy to miss classes and you also receive a kind of fund for traveling. Thus, exploring the traveling opportunities is seen as one essential part of the Erasmus mobility, enhancing the cultural learning and the social integration, especially among other Erasmus students.
Traveling together made them make friends with people from lots of nationalities, and develop a clearer notion of the world, and themselves: Erasmus people or the international students are kind of similar group, a niche group, people that have a kind of special perspective of life and Europe, some sort of liberal ... the idea that the world is open and that you can go anywhere and you can do anything! open minds (FG3). Now I'm feeling like home here. I think I will cry madly when I leave my friends here... I will cry a lot...! (FG1) I learned how it is to be alone and be happy. (FG2) It is an unforgettable experience... it should be mandatory! (FG2)
5
CONCLUSIONS
Overall, this research provides evidence coherent with extant literature, including the studies of Rodríguez, et al. [9] andMaría Cubillo, et al. [23]: Erasmus students travel around their host country, normally in a group, which is a unique opportunity to getting acquainted with other nationalities in a multi-cultural atmosphere; they normally receive friends and family and recommend the destination, becoming its ideal ambassadors. Besides the widely recognized benefits of traveling (cultural awareness and linguistic enrichment are among the most cited), in the context of Erasmus it simultaneously enhances skills that are especially developed in consequence of this activity: get to know and interact with people from different backgrounds and education, and be able to transcend the so-called "comfort zone". Moreover, our results identified the development of management skills, such as prioritize and manage resources like time and money, along with planning and preparing, decision-making, and conflict-solving abilities. Most of these students are living on their own and far from home for the first time and, surprisingly enough, seem to adapt perfectly to the challenge. Nonetheless, by virtue of the qualitative nature of this study, some interesting and revealing insights were provided regarding the importance and essence of travels while on mobility. Students were able to express themselves freely during the focus groups, exchanging and confirming motivations and acknowledging that traveling is one of the most important factors for the Erasmus experience. Moreover, the mobility experience itself appears to be shaped from the beginning by this crucial aspect, as the focus groups conversations indicate. The outcomes of the research are therefore twofold: not only do our results confirm a fundamental connection between mobility and travel - the latter possibly functioning as the main trigger in the process of choosing the host institution - but also highlight broader issues at institutional level. As faculty, these conclusions may disturb and affect our own image as educators. However, one of the priorities of the European Commission - to allow its citizens to be truly European - can only be really accomplished if mobility students have the chance to travel during their exchange period. While educators, it is important to assess mobility students with balanced boundaries, letting them reach conclusions on their own decisions. The way mobility students of today experience Erasmus will reflect itself necessarily in Europe's HEI future learning paradigms. In fact, HEI can benefit from the insights of mobility students regarding the decision process and their concept of what it is to be an Erasmus by devoting a closer analysis to their activities as knowledge and learning providers in such a way as to accommodate academic success and class attendance with complementary appealing aspects that would reinforce the academic mobility experience as a whole.
6
LIMITATIONS AND SUGGESTIONS FOR FUTURE RESEARCH
One of the main limitations of this research is related to its scope. It comprised three focus groups with a total of 15 participants, all of which doing Erasmus mobility in the University of Aveiro in 2016, studying business and management courses. Future studies should include students from different areas of study. Considering the interesting insights provided, we recommend that additional qualitative studies be conducted in other Universities, both with similar and different characteristics from the University of Aveiro. Although some of the results are expected to be transversal to all Erasmus partners, such as the inherent experiences of traveling, one would expect that the importance of traveling in the decision process would vary among universities and countries with distinct positioning and attracting factors.
Future research opportunities also include exploring the profiles of the students and relate them with the traveling experience in general, but also with the importance of traveling, their attitude, motivation and views on mobility. Another aspect of importance that was beyond the scope of this study is the relationship between traveling and learning outcomes. Among Aveiro incoming students we found a transversal importance of traveling, independently of the background and their academic results, either on their home university or during mobility. Considering the evidenced effort some make to travel, penalizing their time in classes, this is an important aspect to explore in future studies. The innovative aspect of this research is the fact that Erasmus students were given total freedom to express their opinions, being guided only by 3 or 4 general questions. In this regard, it would also be quite interesting to explore the lecturers' point of view on the impact of traveling in the learning dynamics.
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