My last blog post was about the Best Cities to Live. But what about the people who visit these cities? A study by travel company Expedia asked 4,500 hotels worldwide to rank tourists on their behavior.
As in the past 2 years, the hoteliers worldwide named the Japanese as the world’s best tourists. They were ranked not only as the quietest and most polite, but also the cleanest and least likely to complain (which I can attest to after living in Japan for over 1.5 years now). The top 10 are:
- Japan
- Britain
- Canada
- Germany
- Switzerland
- Holland
- Australia
- Sweden
- USA
- Denmark
On the flip side, French hold the unenviable reputation for being the world’s worst tourists. According to hoteliers, as well as being the most frugal and meanest tippers, they can also lay claim to being the most impolite tourists – ouch!
For more details, read the recent BBC news article titled Rude French are worst tourists. Who do you think are the best and worse tourists that you have encountered at home and/or in your travels?
I was gonna write a post about that too!
It said that the French were worst overall…but Americans were the loudest and worst dressers.
It said also (as you mention) that the Japanese complained about bad service the least…but I’m surprised that you didn’t mention (since you’re Canadian) that Canadians came in second in that category.
Well, I had Canada listed #3 overall in the post
… I guess I only just mentioned the Japanese and French in more detail in the post.
What did you think of the survey results, generally agree or disagree?
>What did you think of the survey results, generally agree or disagree?
I’d agree that Japanese are usually excellent guests and hosts.
And Americans can be noisy. But are Americans really the world’s worst dressers? (And how does a wardrobe make someone a good or bad tourist?)
Good point about wardrobe … maybe they asked high end hoteliers who notice or care about such things.
Well, if you’re dressed like a slob, it might give some people a bad impression. (I dress like a slob.)
I wanted to comment on this before, but got busy. I ran into an Israeli back when I first came to Japan, who said that it was typical for them when they finished their mandatory 2-year military service to take 1 year to travel the globe. The first stop was always Bangkok, where they’d buy fake press badges. They’d then use these to get into museums and art galleries for free, claiming that they were going to write up articles on them. Don’t know if the French do that…
Thanks for commenting. Wow, that’s quite a story. Anyway, not sure if the Expedia survey included all countries like Israel.
Im from New York and im as quiet as can be. I don’t like loud people. Everyone is different.
Mike, thanks for visiting my blog and commenting.
One of the problems with surveys is it generalizes (and stereotypes) all people. I have seen very bad Japanese tourists and quiet Americans like yourself.