Citation: Yang, F.; Ayavoo, R.; Ab Aziz, N. Exploring Students’ Push and Pull Motivations to Visit Rural Educational Tourism Sites in China. Sustainability 2023, 15, 14739. https://doi.org/10.3390/ su152014739 Academic Editor: Piotr Prus Received: 26 May 2023 Revised: 4 August 2023 Accepted: 31 August 2023 Published: 11 October 2023 Copyright: © 2023 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/). sustainability Article Exploring Students’ Push and Pull Motivations to Visit Rural Educational Tourism Sites in China Feifei Yang 1 , Rajenthyran Ayavoo 1, * and Norazlin Ab Aziz 2 1 Department of Management and Marketing, Faculty of Business and Economics, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur 50603, Malaysia; feifeier1989@gmail.com 2 Department of Finance, Faculty of Business and Economics, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur 50603, Malaysia; azlinaziz@um.edu.my * Correspondence: rajenthyran.ayavoo@um.edu.my Abstract: Educational tourism in rural areas promotes local employment, economic development, and poverty alleviation. Given that there is a lack of research on emerging and developing nations, this study adopted the viewpoint of an emerging country and empirically demonstrates the relationships of consumer behavior with education tourism in rural areas. In particular, the study focused on push-pull motivation factors and loyalty. The mediating role of overall satisfaction on the relationship between push-pull motivation and loyalty was also investigated. The study extracted questions from a sample of 234 students in China and quantitatively analyzed the data using a structural equation model (SEM). The results show that pull motivation factors contribute directly to loyalty, and push motivation was the strongest construct influencing loyalty through overall satisfaction. The results show that in this field, managers need to pay more attention to push and pull motivation at different marketing stages. Keywords: push and pull motivation; rural education tourism; revisit intention; loyalty; China 1. Introduction The push-pull theory is an effective motivation research theory that focuses on the needs of tourists, combines intrinsic motivation with the attributes of destinations, and realizes the link between demand and supply. For the educational tourism (ET) industry, it is very important to understand consumer needs and apply them to the supply side because this can provide guidance for destination operators [1–4]. Researchers and industry professionals are assured that educational tourism will continue to play a big role in the tourism industry despite the fact that COVID-19 has had a substantial impact on it. ET has more room for ongoing development and improvement, which can help China’s economy expand and thrive [5]. Ref. [6] used the perspective of anthropology to classify the individuals involved in research travel. It contains adult studies, educational tourism for college and university students, school tourism, ecotourism, and cultural tourism. Educational tourism (ET) is a form of tourism in which people travel to gain new knowledge, skills, or insights related to a particular subject or area of interest. The primary motivation behind educational tourism is the desire to learn, which sets it apart from other forms of tourism that focus on relaxation, entertainment, or adventure. Learning can be both a primary and secondary motivation for educational tourism. For some participants, the primary motivation may be to acquire new knowledge or skills in a specific area, while for others, learning may be a secondary benefit that enhances their travel experience. Regardless of the level of motivation, the pursuit of knowledge is a key aspect of educational tourism. There are many ways to achieve this learning goal, including not only formal learning with expert guidance but also independent informal learning [6]. Figure 1 is the conceptual model of the definition of educational tourism. Later, researchers developed “Edu-tourism” as the participants travel away from their place of origin with the primary Sustainability 2023, 15, 14739. https://doi.org/10.3390/su152014739 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/sustainability