Revisiting Demand Forecasting for Educational Tourism: Asymmetric Insights From Educational Attention in Australia

This study explores how demanders' attention to study in Australia improves its temporary student visa arrivals (TSV) predictions. Using a monthly data set over the period July 2004–March 2023, the following main findings are produced: First, a vector autoregressive (VAR) model is employed to examine interactions between TSV and demanders' educational attention (EA) to study in Australia. Second, the EA index Granger causes the growth rate of TSV in all cases except for the Northern Territory and the Australian Capital Territory, highlighting the ability of the EA index to predict TSV. Third, the asymmetric VAR model with the EA index achieves the best out‐of‐sample predictive performance and therefore demonstrates the role of EA in more accurately predicting TSV. These findings contribute by not only considering the demanders' EA but also adopting an asymmetric and dynamic systems perspective, offering important implications for re‐assessing the demand for Australia's onshore international education.