Over the first two decades of the twenty-first century, Higher Education Institutions (HEIs, hereafter) have had to face an increasingly competitive environment. In recent years, the post-pandemic outcome and the transition of e-learning (Turnbull et al 2021; Abdelfattah et al. 2023) together with the current and potential impact of IA have added even more pressure. Higher education now tends to be understood as “a global service delivered by quasi-companies in an ever more complex and competitive knowledge marketplace” (Pucciarelli and Kaplan 2016, p. 311). This has led HEIs to greater levels of market orientation to deal with this new environment (Fazal-e-Hasan et al. 2021; Wall Bortz et al. 2020).

These tendencies have been accentuated after the COVID-19 pandemic, putting the HEIs’ in a situation where the competition has increased due to the new possibilities that online learning offers students in choosing where they want to learn. Therefore, the survival of HEIs’ has encountered new challenges heavily relying on their resilience, adaptability, and the development of new skills (Bozkurt 2022). In this scenario, the crossroad of the universities’ relationship with society, between worry and hope, (Bengtsen 2017) is accentuated.

In addition, universities must now deploy an approach of brand ambidexterity oriented toward both exploration and exploitation of opportunities (Steinar and Nguyen 2019). They must pursue diversification and specialization strategies to achieve a better adaptation to customers’ (students’) needs and improve satisfaction, thus increasing students’ retention and loyalty levels (Fazal-e-Hasan et al. 2021; Iskhakova et al. 2017; Wall Bortz et al. 2020).

It is in this context that HEIs’ internationalization policies should be understood. These policies have significantly increased over recent decades in terms of their scope, volume, and complexity, with international student mobility (ISM, hereinafter), in its multiplicity of forms, becoming a priority field (Gümüş et al. 2020). Indeed, not only have there been a rising number of international students over the last two decades (OECD 2022) but also a growing level of competition between HEIs’, as new countries have gradually become recipients of international students, because of their efforts in promoting inward student mobility (Tian and Liu 2021).

One important dimension of inward international student flows is the economic benefit of this “global education market” (Tian and Liu 2021), attracting the attention of tourist destinations. In the aftermath of the pandemic, the World Tourism Organization and the Global Tourism Economy Research Centre (2022) called for a “Youth-led recovery of Global Tourism”, highlighting the importance of this segment for the sector. After the sudden stop due to Covid restrictions, this segment has already recovered and the 2022 numbers are similar to the pre-pandemic situation (European Commission and Directorate-General for Education, 2023).

Consequently, important research avenues have been developed over recent years focusing on improving the knowledge of this growing ISM phenomenon. In the field of tourism, recent events have also raised questions about how the values currently being taught will evolve (Edelheim 2020).

However, this research has been applied mostly from an academic perspective (e.g., Amaro et al. 2019; Gümüş et al. 2020), although studies from a tourism point of view also exist (e.g., Anastasiou 2019; Tran et al. 2018). This paper aims at integrating both perspectives and advancing our knowledge of ISM considering competitive factors of both the HEI and the tourism destination, where the inward institution is located. Thus, we try to fill three important gaps existing in this research field.

First, according to Beech (2019), the reason why students choose one university over another to gain international experience is an open question in the literature and that non-rational factors might exist. We seek to evaluate the importance of both academic and tourism factors in making this decision. In addition, the analysis mostly focuses on international students at a specific moment in time, with no longitudinal studies made, which does not allow to compare if the factors identified are stable over time.

Second, considering that for host countries, mobile students constitute an important source of income, contributing to the local economy through their living expenses (OECD 2022), the aim is to evaluate the economic impact of ISM on the chosen destination, including a tourism perspective. Additionally, considering the relevance of open questions about the socio-cultural, academic and emotional adjustment of international students to the destination (Gümüş et al. 2020), several works have pointed out the importance of satisfaction levels and, consequently, of international students’ loyalty (Amaro et al. 2019), thus, introducing a tourism perspective (Anastasiou 2019). The existing literature addressing the importance of students’ loyalty seems to be focused on the effect it might have for the HEI in terms of repetition and recommendation. Paswan and Ganesh (2009) study the association between different augmenters with students’ willingness to recommend their current university. More recently, Yang et al. (2022) consider the impact of studying abroad into destination loyalty, using destination image and emotional solidarity as mediators, but do not explore the effect of the academic characteristics.

Therefore, the novelty of our study is that we explore the field of international students’ loyalty by considering a much closer approach, analyzing two cohorts of students and integrating a comparison with general tourism loyalty levels to destinations.

In addition, this study evaluates changes in ISM patterns over recent years, not only because of increasing mobility numbers, but also due to the economic and social crisis that began in late 2007, as well as the administrative and management changes implemented to ISM programmes to adapt them to the new environment.

This paper is organized as follows. In the next section, we present the theoretical framework of ISM processes, integrating academic and tourism perspectives. We subsequently introduce our empirical study, our sample and methodological approach, before reporting the empirical results. Lastly, we conclude with a discussion of results and our main suggestions for further research.

2.1 ISM: Context, Definition, and Student Motivations

Strategies focused on promoting ISM by HEIs’ aim to seize the opportunities presented by the trend among millennial students to be more willing than previous generations to travel abroad, not only for studies but also to pursue personal goals, experience new cultures and lifestyles, and develop unique personal or professional competencies (Anastasiou 2019; Richards and Morrill 2020). According to Beech (2019), studying overseas is seen by students as an opportunity for personal transformation that will return rewards in the future, which has been confirmed by the results of several analyses (e.g., Nada et al. (2018). There is a distinction between international students, who have crossed borders expressly with the intention to study (OECD 2022; 191) and foreign students, who refer broadly to non-citizens of the country in which they study.

Moreover, HEIs’ strategies focused on ISM should be differentiated from transnational higher education strategies. The latter is understood as the partnerships made by different institutions seeking for excellence, solve shared problems and strengthen their position (Fehrenbach and Huisman 2024). Therefore, there is no competition to attract students, but rather an agreement to boost mobility among the members.

Over the last decades, multiple higher education exchange programs have arisen in the international arena, facilitated by interinstitutional agreements. These allow students to undertake studies at an overseas university, usually for a period of one semester or one year (Llewellyn Smith and McCabe 2008).

The factors that explain why students choose one university over another to develop their international experience is an open question in the literature. Beech (2019) affirms that mainly academic reasons can be highlighted, like the reputation of the university and its international character, subject area, course content or funding and scholarship opportunities.

Since the year 2020, many articles have been published on the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on scholar mobility. Firang and Mensah (2022), focusing on Canada, highlight the economic implication for universities of the drop in enrollments. Szlachciuk et al, (2022) find that Asian students, who experienced the SARS effect more acutely, were more keen on changing their tourism behavior. Finally, Yang et al. (2022) focus on the need of providing support for international students both at home and abroad.

2.2 Factors Influencing Students’ Choice

The push and pull factor model is a foundational framework used to analyze the dynamics of international student mobility. It categorizes motivations into two distinct but interconnected domains: push factors, which drive students away from their home countries, and pull factors, which attract them to specific host countries or institutions. Push factors are often associated with unfavorable conditions in the home country, such as political instability, limited access to quality education, and economic hardship (Mazzarol and Soutar 2002; Chang et al. 2022). In contrast, pull factors include the reputation of the host country’s education system, quality of life, post-graduation opportunities, and cultural appeal (Wen and Hu 2019).

Push factors, as identified in multiple studies, can include poor employment prospects, lack of preferred academic programs, or economic and political instability in the home country (Chang and Chou 2021). On the other hand, pull factors are characterized by specific advantages offered by the host country or institution. For example, Chemsripong (2019) emphasizes that a country’s reputation for high-quality education and accessible financial support mechanisms, such as scholarships, can serve as strong pull factors.

The different factors considered by students when making a choice are a combination of those related to the HEI (e.g., quality of courses, university’s reputation) and factors linked to the destination, such as cost of living, similarities of cultures or social networks (Beech 2019; Mendoza-Jiménez and García‑Rodríguez, 2014; Wilkins et al. 2012). Research on this specific issue of ISM has significantly expanded since 2005, showing contradictory results (Gümüş et al. 2020).

Therefore, although institutional factors affect the pull dynamic, with institutional reputation, program quality, and international partnerships being significant determinants of choice (King et al. 2018; Nikou and Luukkonen 2024), the analysis of previous literature also shows that going to another country and feeling welcome plays an important role in the students choice. Calvo et al. (2024) highlight the importance of student associations and their activities, while Kazakova et al. (2021) enounce the role of the local people on the final satisfaction of international students. Related to the characteristics of the host country, Kirsloskar and Inamdar (2021) point out the significance of the migration rules, the cultural and language landscape, and the welcoming attitude of residents as key factors for the flow of students.

Standing on this duality of possible variables, the study of Kosmaczewska (2023) categorizes the students depending on their preference for education or tourism during their mobility and concludes that destination factors are more influential than those related with the host educational institution.

2.3 Tourism and ISM in Higher Education

Considering this complex decision-making process by students, that don’t always include entirely rational reasons (Beech 2019), research has shown a strong connection between ISM, particularly at the tertiary level, and tourism. International students have been found to have a strong impact on the tourism industry of their study country (Tran et al. 2018). For instance, Jarvis (2020) studies the implications of international students in Estonia’s post-Soviet rebranding, and Jafari et al. (2023) highlight the decline of international students due to the pandemic among the downsize effect on the tourism sector in Famagusta (Cyprus).

There is still an ongoing discussion about the exact definition of “academic tourism” as a distinct segment. Rodriguez et al. (2012), standing on the definition of the UNWTO (2010) limit the term to mobility periods lasting less than 1 year in an international institution outside the person’s normal environment. Clark (2009) points out two categories: international students and foreign students. Although in principle they could be considered similar, as seen in Table 1, important differences among both groups are present.

Therefore, while the first group includes students in exchange programs, language students, research scholars, short-term trainees and other people going through similar long-term schemes, the second group could be defined as “students who are not permanent or usual residents of their country of study, or alternatively as students who obtained their prior education in a different country” (OECD, 2024, p: 238).

Starting from that, Martinez Roget and Rodriguez (2021) add the concept of international academic, that includes both international and national mobility, thus covering, among others, the Erasmus programme, which is the focus of this article.

According to the World Tourism Organization (2016), academic tourism could be included in the wider segment of youth and student travel and result in significant advantages to destinations due to the high expenditure—based on the high number of travelers (400 billion USD estimated for 2020). Academic tourism also shows increased levels of resilience and greater expenditure in the destination compared to other tourist segments. Indeed, it is considered an economic driving force, making important contributions to local industries, in part because students have more active and purposeful forms of travel. Moreover, students attract other visitors to the destination, especially family and friends (Kashiwagi et al. 2018; Rodríguez et al. 2012).

The OECD (2022) highlights that the movement of international students engaged in higher education programs represents a significant and growing market that can have a relevant impact on the economy and innovation systems (Halterbeck and Conlon 2021). Their number has expanded massively worldwide over the past few decades, rising from 2 million in 1998 to 5.3 million in 2017, with 3.7 million in the OECD area.

These potential tourists may travel for a variety of touristic and non-touristic reasons mixing tourist destination and university factors (Mendoza-Jiménez and García‑Rodríguez 2014; Llewellyn Smith and McCabe 2008). Interestingly, higher education international students belong to the Millennial generation, a cohort of individuals who were born between 1982 and 2002. This is one of the largest groups targeted by the tourism industry due to its sheer numbers and spending capacity. It is also a segment characterized by its homogenous motivations, values and attitudes toward traveling (Liu et al. 2019; Rita et al. 2019) not to mention that they are more inclined to used digital technologies than previous generations (Frenzel and Frisch 2020).

As mentioned, international students can make a significant contribution to the host country’s economy in several ways, such as accommodation, food, travel, and leisure (Llewellyn Smith and McCabe 2008). As the duration of the international students’ stays usually tend to be longer than conventional tourists, their consumer patterns are to some extent closer to residents’ ones (Rodríguez et al. 2012). However, the effects of international students on tourist destinations are not only direct but also indirect and induced (Mendoza-Jimenez and García-Rodríguez 2014), like traveling while staying in the host country (Tian and Liu 2021) and attracting trips by friends and relatives from their home countries (Dwyer et al. 2014; Kashiwagi et al. 2018; Tran et al. 2018). In addition, they can also contribute to improving the image of certain nationalities that could be affected in the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic (Zheng et al 2025).

Contrary to the effects of tourism on Island Destinations there is not an extensive literature focus on the effects of academic tourism there. Among the existing studies, as referred above, Jafari et al. (2023) analyze the effect of international students in the tourism sector in Cyprus. Lin et al. (2019) examine the experiences of students in a short vacation period in Taiwan, while Mehtap-Smadi and Hashemipour (2011) explore the role of promoting international education in a Small Island State emphasizing the importance of applying retention strategies and increasing students’ satisfaction.

Taking all this into account, it is important to understand how students make their decisions and what factors and information sources most influence them, to define competitive marketing strategies, both from HEI and destination perspectives (Mendoza-Jimenez and García-Rodríguez, 2014). In this sense, there is a major lack of literature regarding how international students’ pre-purchase expectations are shaped (Anastasiou 2019). There are also few studies on students’ satisfaction and loyalty levels that could help define the most suitable and competitive strategies to attract and retain them (Amaro et al. 2019).

The scope of this study is incoming students of the European Community Action Scheme for the Mobility of University Students, more commonly known as the Erasmus Programme, from academic year 2008/2009 to the year 2018/2019. The nowadays called Erasmus + programme includes several actions promoting both individual mobility and collaboration within public and private institutions. Out of these actions, the object of our analysis is the K103 program, specifically the part that addresses students´ mobility to other HEIs.

The allocated budget for the Erasmus + programme amounts to 16.45 billion euros in the current financial period from 2014 to 2020. Moreover, the programme is hugely popular with satisfaction rates of up to 90% (European Commission 2018). It has been appraised as one of the most influential tools for European Union integration. In 1973, ten years of trials started with the involvement of nine Member States, leading to the 1987 official launch of the programme that has seen its figures rise year after year (Ceri Jones 2017).

The students completed their stay at the Universidad de La Laguna (ULL) in Tenerife, the Canary Islands. This is a typical example of a ‘‘sun, sand, and sea’’ tourism destination in the mature stage (Oreja-Rodríguez et al. 2008), that also shows the features of an island destination. It attracts more than 6 million tourists yearly (Exceltur 2019) while the university has a long tradition of international mobility. Annually, the university receives around 450 students, which accounts for more than 2% of the total number.

The subjects of the study have been divided into two time-based groups. The first group did their Erasmus from 2008 till 2012 and the second from 2013 till 2019. The choice of this cohort facilitates the use of the same variables as the group from 2008 to 2012, which has been analyzed in the study of Garcia-Rodriguez and Mendoza-Jimenez (2014), thus being the base to build more solid comparisons with the second one.

To assess the importance of the factors attracting Erasmus students, this study follows the framework developed by Llewellyn-Smith and McCabe (2008), proposing a dual model including variables from the academic and the tourism sphere. The selection of variables for the abovementioned study, where the first cohort was surveyed, stands on the previous literature as Fig. 1 shows. A total of 45 factors were distributed evenly between the university and the destination sphere to be used for surveying the Erasmus students of the first cohort.