Foreign Scholars Activities and their Impacts on Sustainable Tourism Development in Nairobi Metropolis, Kenya

Abstract

Foreign scholars move to international destinations and enroll in institutions for academic courses of study. The students form a promising niche’ market and is the third export earner in Australia. Africa is endowed with unique geographical features which attract the students who enroll in programs such as; eco-tourism, heritage tourism, rural/farm tourism and student exchanges between educational institutions. Africa recognizes educational tourism as a promising niche’ market segment to cushion out the fluctuating numbers of other market segments. The region receives about 14% foreign scholars yearly to add to those existing in their institutions of learning. Kenya receives 50,000 of the students distributed as 1% admissions to public universities and 12% to private universities, a constant 200,000 international students annually. The reasons why scholars from developed nations do not prioritize Africa should be investigated to increase Kenya’s market share. The study purposed to establish the tourist activities that are of interest to the scholars. The scholars from all over the globe join Kenya’s institutions of higher learning and throughout their course of study, they will be attached to attraction sites either as part of their study or as leisure activities. UNESCO supports travel of students to foreign destinations in order to enhance and promote culture and international understanding. International students visit several tourist attraction sites and can be classified as foreign or local tourists. Questionnaires were administered to the scholars, the heads of foreign student offices were subjected in-depth interviews while the communities offering tourism participated in focus group discussions. Only 29.7% (98) had involved themselves with various activities in the communities while a considerable number (65.2%) did not involve themselves in the activities within host communities. However, there was a significant relationship between tourists’ activity options and sustainable tourism development, the P-value 0.029 (P-value<0.05). When tourists’ activity options and economic impact were cross tabulated, no significant relationship was displayed because P-value is 0.301 (P-value>0.05). Majority 58.7% of the students were self-driven to the local communities. The study shows that most of the activities linked to educational trips are organized in relation to the products of tourism available within destinations.

Keywords: International students, international destinations, local destinations, niche’ market, foreign scholars.