African Journal of Business Management Vol.5 (5), pp. 1691-1702, 4 March, 2011 Available online at http://www.academicjournals.org/AJBM DOI: 10.5897/AJBM10.610 ISSN 1993-8233 ©2011 Academic Journals Full Length Research Paper Destination choice, service quality, satisfaction, and consumerism: International students in Malaysian institutions of higher education Yet Mee Lim 1 , Ching Seng Yap 2 and Teck Heang Lee 3 * 1 Faculty of Accountancy and Management, Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman (UTAR), Lot PT 21144, Jln Sungai Long, Bandar Sungai Long, 43000 Kajang, Selangor, Malaysia. 2 Bank Rakyat School of Business and Entrepreneurship, Universiti Tun Abdul Razak, Malaysia. 3 School of Business, Monash University Sunway Campus, Jalan Lagoon Selatan, 46150 Bandar Sunway, Selangor Darul Ehsan, Malaysia. Accepted 23 August, 2010 This pilot study examines the pull factors influencing international students in selecting Malaysia as the host country and their perceptions of service quality in Malaysian institutes of higher education. It has been found that students from the Middle East countries came to Malaysia mainly due to agent recommendation, lower costs, and comfortable climate. They were somewhat satisfied with their host institution. The Chinese students came to Malaysia upon the recommendation of their parents and relatives, familiarity of the country, and perceived favorable study environment. And they were somewhat dissatisfied with their host institution. These groups of students seemed to treat education as an investment and they placed importance on such factors as reputation, quality of academic staff, course content, program-related issues, costs, delivery of services, and management’s concern for them. They perceived that, overall, their host institutions were not performing satisfactory in providing quality education services. Finally, our data suggest much consumerism among these international student groups. Key words: Study destination choice, service quality, student consumerism, student satisfaction. INTRODUCTION There has been an increasing globalization in the sector of higher education for the past couple of decades. The globalization of higher education can be seen from the large flow of students studying abroad and the increasing number of colleges and universities providing educational services across borders. It has been estimated that there are two million students studying worldwide outside of their home countries, and this number may increase to *Correspondence author. E-mail: lee.teck.heang@buseco.monash.edu.my. Tel: (+603) 5514 6317. Fax: (+603) 5514 6192. eight million by the year of 2025 (Altbach, 2004). Most of the international students are from countries in Asia, Africa, and Europe. They study in only a small number of host countries with USA, France, Germany, UK, and Canada as the five leading host countries. By far USA is the largest provider of international education. In 1990, USA was the host to students mainly from Asian countries such as China, Japan, and Taiwan. France had a large proportion of its students from Morocco and Algeria; while Germany drew heavily from Turkey, Iran, and Greece. Malaysia and Hong Kong were the top two source countries for UK; and for Canada, Hong Kong, Philippines, and China were the top three sources of students (Mazzarol and Hosie, 1996).