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Cambodian and Laotian students (CLS) are among the largest groups of international students in intra-ASEAN student mobility as well as in Vietnamese higher education institutions (HEIs). However, little has been researched on the factors influencing CLS’s decision to choose Vietnam as destination country. The purpose of this study is to investigate why CLS decide to go overseas and choose Vietnam as their host country among other opportunities as well as their perceptions of the decision.

Using qualitative methods and employing purposive sampling, data were collected by semi-structured interviews from CLS studying in a HEI in the Mekong Delta of Vietnam. The data were analysed against the push–pull framework to understand factors influencing the participants’ decision.

The findings show that CLS in the study were “pushed” by the perceived higher value of a foreign qualification and family encouragements. In terms of pull factors, they were attracted to choose Vietnam as the host country most observably due to scholarship opportunities. However other pull factors were also significant, especially the lack of certain skills in home countries and its congruence with Vietnam’s competitive strength in offering courses for those skills. In retrospect, the participants expressed a sense of optimism, though there was also certain reservation.

The small sample restrict the generalisability of the findings.

As an exploratory study, the findings can lay the ground for largerscale studies investigating CLS mobility in Vietnam and be employed for inbound student mobility policymaking reference for HEIs in Vietnam as well as in other developing countries.

This study investigates why Cambodian and Laotian international students decide to go to Vietnam, a developing country in the lesser-known part of international student mobility landscape. This is a topic that remains under-researched in the Asia-bound student mobility literature. Insights from the study can not only contribute to the scholarly gap but also offer implications for HEIs in Vietnam and other Asian countries.

This introductory chapter defines and notes the development of tourism out of Asia as a new force in global human communication. The complexities and some efficiencies in defining Asia are reviewed. The chapter considers dispersal patterns from a number of Asian countries and notes the chief destinations as provided by current statistical counts. Key issues arising from attempts to interpret these data are noted. The importance of out of Asia tourists is confirmed through the material presented. The visibility of Asian tourists is considered and the subtleties of recognizing intra-Asian differences are noted. Some select theoretical approaches focussing on societies in contact are introduced. These theories offer pathways to bring academic and managerial insights to this evolving phenomenon.

Perhaps more than any other country, the island nation of Singapore offers a bridge among cultures. Using data from multinational cohorts of international tourists studying in Singapore, this chapter reveals the travel patterns and preferences of Indian students whose tourist behaviors are less well understood. This chapter aims to identify their key motives using Pearce and Lee’s travel career pattern model. It also aims to identify the destination-based factors that attract Indian students in Singapore. The findings suggest that the students’ travel motives are linked to kinship and collectivism, and they are most concerned about price and safety when choosing destinations. This chapter reveals core motives and how the students can be welcomed in the next steps of their travel trajectory.

Purpose – This chapter examines the roles of the Unification Church (UC) in reconstructing the discourse of the gendered desire of Filipina marriage migrants and their Korean husbands, serving as an intermediary agency in the process of international marriage migration, and reinforcing heterosexual practices as part of a regime of normalization.

Methodology – The chapter is based on 1 year of ethnographic fieldwork that included a review of secondary sources, participant observation, and in-depth interviews with Filipinas and Korean men.

Findings – The chapter shows the ways in which the UC reinforces the dominant discourse of gendered desire that portrays marriage migrants as women who wish to migrate mainly to marry a man who can provide economic stability. Filipina migrants, however, infuse the cultural discourse of romantic love into their decisions about husbands and marriage migration. Lastly, as the UC delineates normative heterosexual practices based on its religious doctrines, the church becomes a “regime of normalization” for traditional patriarchal heteronormativity.

Social implications – The chapter contributes to the idea that gender and sexuality are socially constructed and constitutive of migration.

Originality/value of chapter – The chapter examines not only the matchmaking role of an intermediary agency that facilitates cross-border marriages but also the agency's role in re/constructing gendered desire. Further, the chapter contributes to an understudied area: the social process of reconstructing heteronormativity in a transnational context.

Since China initiated its “go global” policy that promotes its overseas investment, China’s Outward Foreign Direct Investment (OFDI) has increased almost twenty times during the last 10 years, reaching $55.9 billion in 2008. The issue of internationalization of Chinese OFDI has attracted increasing attention of researchers from a business perspective. This article systematically reviews the previous studies on overseas investments by Chinese MNEs and discusses the characteristics of Chinese internationalization behavior at both firm level and country level. The internationalization of Chinese companies cannot be understood as a simple game of “catch up” with established MNEs, and more firm‐level empirical studies should be carried out on how these characteristics influence firms’ strategic decisions.