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4.2.4 Benefit type A4: Personal consumer behaviour
A further type of tangible economic benefit to the UK arises from alumni through their
personal behaviour as purchasers or consumers of products and especially as travellers
who return to the UK. In this section we consider only those who have returned to their
country of origin or now live in another country, not the UK. Benefits from alumni who
remained in the UK since HE study are reported under benefit type A5.
4.2.4.1 Research
evidence
Some aspects of graduates’ personal behaviour were explored in the interviews, as
potential consumers having been exposed to a variety of UK brands while they lived in the
UK. Given the vast and increasing number of international alumni of UK HE, collectively
this could represent considerable purchasing power worldwide.
Where the experiences of alumni as consumers during their time in the UK had been
positive, they had built up some degree of brand loyalty and many remained consumers of
those UK exports in the long term, as well as influencing others’ purchasing behaviour. A
number of alumni reported that they continued to purchase UK brand items (such as
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The Wider Benefits of International Higher Education in the UK
clothing) by mail order from their home country, and/or favoured UK brands that were
available locally, such as interviewee I89 who claimed to be something of a shopaholic
loving UK brands, with a particular affinity for Boots as she had studied in Nottingham. She
reported that she tended to pick up UK brand products in her supermarket and also seek
UK shops whenever she travelled:
“Whenever I go and if I see[ ] a Topshop or Marks & Spencer ...you’re going to walk
into that store first because you know [it]. Whenever I go shopping I always look for
either Body Shop or Boots or anything like that; …to change that brand becomes
difficult.”
Many graduates reported that they were avid subscribers to the BBC, especially for its
international online services, and certain other UK media such as international editions of
the national press, while some others pursued UK-linked leisure activities such as support
for a football team, while others maintained subscriptions to UK scientific journals or
technical press as part of their ongoing professional development.
The development of social contacts and personal relationships during study in the UK, and
maintaining them, is considered in detail in a later section (benefit type C5), reflecting its
prominence as a personal benefit for almost every international graduate interviewed.
While the majority of alumni reported that they did maintain social interactions with fellow
alumni or other contacts made during their UK HE experience, only perhaps 20-25% had
until now actually travelled back to the UK. The dominant driver for such visits was to meet
the friends in the UK that they had made, although a minority also made trips for business
purposes. Some of these were regular visitors, making annual trips, and the majority of
those who had not yet returned expressed a desire to travel back to the UK for leisure or
social purposes (but often could not yet afford to do so).
Life in student hall did not suit interviewee I50 and it was through her subsequent
shared house with British students that she made strong friends during her first degree
in forensic psychology at Staffordshire. She reported still watching the BBC constantly,
shopping online in the UK and returned frequently for holidays:
“I’m very fond of the
UK…and I keep going back on vacation. Every time I’m on vacation, I tell myself I
have to go somewhere new, and every time I still go to the UK”.
I70 visited every year for a fortnight from Thailand with her daughter, staying with the
neighbour next to the house in which she had lived during her PhD at Essex.
I77 visited regularly from Bangladesh and the extent of her personal and business
contact with the UK was such that she planned to buy a house in London.
I99 returned to the UK from Turkey regularly to visit both her personal friends and also
her tutor from Anglia Ruskin, whom she regarded as family:
“I have also English people
from my university and also I have a contact with my tutors still. We are sending email
cards to each of them. When I came to the UK, I visit them, we will meet in a café and
[be] just like a family”.
A number of graduates professed very strong liking for the particular UK city in which they
had studied including (but not exclusively) London, which was an additional driver for their
return as tourists.
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The Wider Benefits of International Higher Education in the UK
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