5.0 Discussion

The first aim stated that is to conduct a survey of tourism consumer behaviour influencing Malaysian student’s destination choice during the LJMU Summer Semester Program.

In this section, there are a total sample size of 70 and 100% of them had travelled during the past 3 months (referring to appendix 7.3.1a). Besides that, 74.3% of respondents strongly agreed that it is important to travel during the LJMU Summer Semester Program (referring to appendix 7.3.1c. A.Scott-Halsell and Saiprasert (2011) stated that the travel destination is not the only decision that a tourist needs to make before taking a trip but includes decisions concerning members of the travel group, timing, transportation mode, route, budget, destinations, and activities. According to Liu (2008), activity is a key component in student travel experiences. Slabbert and Saayman et al. (2012) show that nowadays students spend more time on travel planning, especially regarding the destination visit, the mode of travel and the cost of the trip.

55 out of 70 respondents went for day trips which represented 78.6% of the total population (referring to appendix 7.3.1b). This outcome was not compatible with the literature review as according to Slabbert and Saayman et al. (2012) In Australia, students prefer to travel during the summer break, followed by the break between the first and second semesters, during the southern winter (Slabbert and Saayman et al. 2012). Slabbert and Saayman et al. (2012) reported that students stay on average between six and 14 nights, whereas students from Asian countries and Australia stay up to 10 nights (Slabbert and Saayman et al. 2012).

The second objective was to have an examination of destination trends affecting choice of Malaysian student’s travel destinations during the LJMU Summer Semester Program.

44 out of 70 respondents had chosen train as their preferred mode of transport to travel during the LJMU Summer Semester Program. 14 respondents choose bus and the remaining 12 respondents prefer airplane as their mode of transport to travel (referring to appendix 7.3.2a). Students use a variety of transports on holiday. It was found that student travellers travelled by public transportation. For those young independent travellers, bus and rail were their major choices (Liu 2008).

49 out of 70 respondents preferred service was a lower cost for certain facilities, the remaining 21 respondents preferred to have a higher cost with full facilities (referring to appendix 7.3.2b). Li and Tsai (2013) indicated that allocentrics prefer unstructured vacations and exotic travel, whereas psychocentrics prefer traveling in familiar environments. Many study abroad student travellers are independent tourists (Filep 2009). Independent tourists are all the vacation travellers who have not booked an air travel and accommodation package with a ravel retailer (Filep 2009). The trend in independent travel has grown steadily. A different type of student traveller is a packaged student traveller (Filep 2009). Packaged student travel is organized by the tourism industry. Filep (2009) define a package traveller as a vacation traveller who has booked his or her air travel, accommodation and possibly other element of a holiday through a travel retailer.

There are a few destination trend that influence students to travel, 38 respondents choose to travel to a well known destination, 17 respondents choose cultural trend of a destination influence to travel, 14 choose fashion trend as an influence to travel last but not least 1 out of 70 respondents choose food as trend that influence to travel (referring to appendix 7.3.2c). Besides that, 58.6% out of 70 students strongly agree that advertisement influence them to travel to a destination (referring to appendix7.3.2e). Lastly, 50% out of 70 respondents strongly agree that popular attraction influence them to travel to a destination. Image plays a crucial role in how people