Influence of Policy Strategies, Instruments, and Malaysians’ Attitude on Sustainable Edu-tourist Industry in Malaysia

Abstract

This paper proposes a theoretical model that explains predictive influence of edu-tourist policy strategies, and instruments, including, attitude of Malaysians towards international edu-tourists on sustainable edu-tourist industry in Malaysia. The design / methodology that was adopted in this article involves presentation of an hypothetical model which shows sustainable edu-tourist indusrty in Malaysia as a dependent variable been influenced by two (2) sets of  independent variables: policy strategies, and instruments, including, the mediating influence of attitude of Malaysian towards internaional edu-tourists between Malaysian edu-tourist policy strategies, and instruments, and sustainable edu-tourist industry in Malaysia. These variables, whether consciously or unconsciously influence the choice of Malaysia as a preferred edu-tourist destination country among international edu-tourists. The limitations of this study stem from the nature of the study itself.  The study integrate factors identified in existing literature that influence sustainable edu-tourist industry in other countries, hence, replicate same in the context of Malaysia.  Future research on the subject in Malaysia context will examine the existing relationships among the aforementioned variables. In particular, it will give and analyse the weight of each factor and the relative importance of each element for the factor it belongs. Therefore, determining the relative importance of each element and factors they belong would constitute an important source of information for future work on sustainable edu-tourist industry in Malaysia. Since, there are few studies which try to examine the influence of policy strategies,and instruments, including, the mediating effects of attitudes of Malaysian towards internaional edu-tourists between edu-tourist policy strategies, and instruments, and sustainable edu-tourist industry in Malaysia from an integrated point of view, this paper contributes to bridging the gap.

Keywords: Policy Strategies, Policy Instruments,  Edu-tourism, Edu-tourist.