Golden Age: Study Gold Coast reveals city now fastest-growing hub for English courses
THE Gold Coast isn’t just Australia’s tourism capital — New data reveals the new industry which is brining in billions for the city and is set to become a major pillar of the city’s economy.
Golden Age
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THE Gold Coast isn’t just Australia’s tourism capital — it is the country’s fastest growing hub for foreign students studying English.
The city’s popularity as an education hub is soaring for foreigners doing short courses, particularly English language tuition with many on tourist or working holiday visas.
The Gold Coast has now officially become the fastest growing spot for English language students nationally, with a 26 per cent surge in numbers last year.
The majority were from Latin America and Spain.
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Study Gold Coast CEO Shannon Willoughby said the city was emerging as the preferred destination for students from non-English speaking countries due to:
— the quality of the education;
— the destination’s holiday and lifestyle offering;
— access to part-time employment while here.
Not only that, on average 70 per cent of the short-term students end up choosing to stay longer and completing more study once they get here.
“Our English language students often come over for a short period to learn intensive English and then the love affair begins and they choose to stay and complete further education,” Ms Willoughby said.
“This is why we are committed to building this market to help support a long-term sustainable pipeline of students coming to the Gold Coast.”
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The numbers and income associated with the sector speak for themselves.
Study Gold Coast data shows 25 per cent of all foreign students each get nine visits by family members and friends while here.
Each of those nine visits results in a stay on average of just over four nights, pumping $43 million into the economy.
The value nationally of international education — with foreign students paying full fees — hit $32.2 billion for the 2017 calendar year, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics.
Australia hosted 624,001 international students last year, a record number and a 12.7 per cent jump on 2016.
Ms Willoughby said on the Gold Coast the growth was even more significant with a 15.8 per cent increase and a total just shy of 30,000 international students — and she added the city was “now well established as the English language capital of Queensland”.
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The latest figures showed on the Gold Coast Brazilians had overtaken Chinese as the highest percentage of the city’s foreign students.
“A great number of the 5000 enrolled Brazilians are (enrolled as) English Language Intensive Courses for Overseas Students (ELICOS) and increasingly they are being joined by many others from Latin America,” Ms Willoughby said.
“Our climate and lifestyle are two of the big drawcards for those students but our high quality education is just as important.”
Australia had 155,448 ELICOS students in 2017 with 6500 on the Gold Coast. More than 4000 foreign students on the Gold Coast were on a tourist or working holiday visa.
Brown’s English Language School assistant director of studies Marcell Buist said the weather seemed to be the main thing drawing students to the Gold Coast, but there was more than that keeping them here.
“There’s an easygoing lifestyle they’re attracted to in Australia.
“They really just come out here, learn English and have a great holiday,” she said.
“We have a lot of students re-enrolling after they’ve come here for a certain period of time, and extending their visas when they want to stay longer.”
Destination Gold Coast chairman Paul Donovan said education had become a crucial tourism driver for the city with a “three-pronged marketing attack” by Study Gold Coast, universities and English language schools paying off.
“Long-term, their parents come and visit a couple of times a year, often they buy a property for the student to stay in while here and some decide to live here.
“It is adding hugely to the economy,” he said.
“We also have three universities here now spending an inordinate amount of money overseas marketing themselves and the destination.” Donovan said.
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VICTOR Olivieri, 24, is one of thousands of young South Americans on the Gold Coast on tourism visas, taking time out of their holiday to learn.
“I was looking for a place to improve my English, and in Brazil I have some friends that went to Australia,” he said.
“But I was looking for a calm place and I always dreamt of living by the beach, so I wanted somewhere I could enjoy the life and the nature.”
Fellow student Lucas Bastos, 23, the lifestyle and fun of the Gold Coast provides the perfect mix: “I wanted to learn English and do surfing as well.”
He plans to do a masters in finance once his English lessons are over, hoping to return home to help with his family business.
“It was confusing, choosing between the United States and here, but in Australia you can work legally so that’s one of the reasons,’’ he said.
“Also the weather is really similar to Brazil, which for sure, since I’m far away from my country, it’s a positive.”
Brazilian Renata Rijo, 19, and her boyfriend, swapped New Zealand for the Gold Coast once they heard about it.
“We didn’t like NZ very much, it was too busy and too cold. My boyfriend chose it because he likes surfing so he said, ‘Oh, let’s go to Australia’.”
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