International student travel is usually treated as a unit together with international youth travel, since the types of travelers and their characteristics [Page 662]overlap. However, the international student traveler is more concretely defined by several study-specific qualities, motivations, activities, and perceptions. Youth and student travel together is a key sector of global tourism, continuously growing in size and importance, with implications for its travelers, stakeholders, and society as a whole. This is reflected in international student travelers’ complex motivational patterns, relations with host communities, personal benefits and changes as a result of their travel experience, and ever increasing stakeholder interests and involvement.

Despite these implications, international student travel is largely underrepresented in politics worldwide, though tourism-positive national policy measures are notable exceptions. However, given the pervasiveness ...