Students from Thailand looking for university accommodation in the United Kingdom are the most active overseas nation according to data from a website that specialises in luxury student properties.
The top overseas nations by share of visitors visiting luxury student accommodation website www.collegiate-ac.com, have been revealed as Thailand, Egypt and China.
The company revealed that after those from the U.K., the largest proportion of visitors to their website came from Thailand, with a share of 3.07 percent of visits, followed by Egypt at 2.98 percent and China as the third highest non-UK nation with 2.64 percent of web visits.
This marks an interesting change on its 2014 figures when U.S. visitors ranked top for non-UK visits, followed by India in second place with 2.36 percent and China third with 2.30 percent.
Every year the number of international students that look outside of their home country in order to pursue a university career grows, with 2014 figures of non-U.K. acceptances at U.K. universities standing at a record level of 64,915 students, according to UCAS, an increase of 4.7 percent on the previous year.
A prominent factor in the evolution of the globe’s higher education community is the use of the internet in searching for a university. Making the world far more accessible and meaning that finding out about universities in far flung corners of the globe is far easier, new data released by Google has revealed the most popular countries searched by people looking outside of their own country of residence for information on universities.
The results make interesting reading with the U.K. ranking second to the U.S. with a 26 percent and 35.4 percent share of world university searches respectively, with Canada trailing far behind in third place with just 8 percent of global reach.
Heriberto Cuanalo, Chief Executive Officer of Collegiate AC, explained: “With students’ lives increasingly active online, as well as expanding numbers of students arriving to study in the U.K. from overseas, we have certainly noticed this growing trend reflected in our online booking figures and the positive feedback we are getting from both students and their parents about the online booking process.
“Feedback has shown us that the ability to clearly compare accommodation options, view the range of facilities on offer and the ease of the online booking process are all key factors when choosing their university accommodation online and therefore these are the things that we have focused on getting right on our website.”
“We are proud to welcome students from around the world to our luxury accommodation throughout the U.K., and are embracing the growing role that the Internet is having in this.”