Choice of Malaysia as an edu-tourist destination among international edu-tourists: An exploratory factor analysis

This article examined the underlying dimensions that influence the choice of malaysia as a preferred edu-tourist destination. about 500 international edu-tourists from africa,asia and the middle east were sampled in 13 public and private malaysian universities through the use of questionnaires. an exploratory factor analysis was applied. the results of the principal component analysis (pca) revealed the emergence of five dimensions with eigenvalues > 1. an inspection of the scree plot revealed a clear break in the five dimensions,explained by a variance of 59.04% with malaysia's edu-tourism image contributing (30.99%),socio-cultural factors (10.60%),economic factors (6.94%),significant others (6.10%),and environmental factors (4.42%). the results of the varimax rotation revealed that the structure of the five dimensions of edu-tourism destination country of choice (edcc) with strong loadings determine the choice of malaysia as a preferred edu-tourist destination among international edu-tourists from emerging countries. since the focus of the malaysian government is on making malaysia the edu-tourist destination hub of south east asia,the factors that are capable of attracting international edu-tourists from other emerging countries need to be identified. this will enable the government of malaysia and managers of the malaysian edu-tourist industry to develop appropriate feasible policies and strategies that are capable of attracting edu-tourists. this paper provides an extensive block of 25 indicators,split into five dimensions,which are capable of determining the choice of malaysia as an edu-tourist destination.a. © 2016 universiti putra malaysia press.