Article Do travel images affect international students’ on-site academic value? New evidence from the Malaysia’s ‘higher edutourism’ destination Jason MS Lam Multimedia University (Malacca Campus), West Malaysia Ahmad Azmi M Ariffin Graduate School of Business, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, West Malaysia Abstract While previous studies have merely focused on travel destination image (TDI) with respect to influencing international students’ decision-making for academic destinations (i.e. the pre- experience stage), research on TDI relating to students’ on-site educational experiences and future behavioural intentions remain scant. This study introduces the ‘higher edutourism’ concept as a key enabler from the higher education market in attracting international students for the tourism indus- try. This study attempts to extend the TDI paradigm by empirically examining cognitive, affective and conative TDIs from a multidimensional perspective and its effects on overall perceived value, while also testing the indirect effects of TDIs. A total of 515 questionnaires were analysed using structural equation modelling. The results confirmed that cognitive TDI would positively impact affective TDI, perceived value and subsequently, conative TDI. Theoretical and practical implications for policy- makers, higher education administrators and tourism marketers are also discussed. Keywords Affective travel destination image, cognitive destination image, conative destination image, higher edutourism, Malaysia, perceived value Introduction The growth in the number of students globally who venture outside of their home country to travel abroad for tertiary education is interesting to note (Deng and Ritchie, 2018). Notably, in 2009, an educational report stated that there were 3.7 million international students who travelled from their home country for education; this fig- ure is expected to grow to 6.7 million by the year 2020, many of whom originate from developing countries (Eggins, 2014).Western countries are currently in highest demand by overseas and international students seeking higher education (Urbanovi č et al., 2016). The United States remains the current market leader with a 16.5% market share, followed by the United Kingdom (13.0%), Germany (6.3%) and France (6.2%) Corresponding author: Jason MS Lam, Faculty of Business, Multimedia University (Malacca Campus), Old Ayer Keroh Road, Bukit Beruang County, Historic Malacca City, 75400 Malacca, West Malaysia. Email: mslam@mmu.edu.my Journal of Vacation Marketing 2019, Vol. 25(4) 499–514 ª The Author(s) 2019 Article reuse guidelines: sagepub.com/journals-permissions DOI: 10.1177/1356766719842274 journals.sagepub.com/home/jvm