Pushy French are world's worst tourists: study

[Catty1]

But other countries mentioned here: USA, Canada, Japan, Britain. I wonder how each of these countries measures tourists visiting THEM.
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http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/afp/09071...france_offbeat

Pushy French are world's worst tourists: study

Fri Jul 10, 12:14 PM

PARIS (AFP) - Penny-pinching, rude and terrible at foreign languages: French people are the world's worst tourists and Japanese the best, according to a study of the global hotel industry.

Carried out last month by TNS Infratest for the Expedia online travel agency, the study asked 40,000 hotels worldwide to rank tourists from 27 countries based on nine criteria, from their politeness to their willingness to tip.

Clean and tidy, polite, quiet and uncomplaining, Japanese tourists came top of the crop for the third year running.

At the other end of the spectrum, French holidaymakers and business travellers were the least generous or ready to tip, and ranked next-to-last for their overall behaviour and politeness.

Pushy French travellers made amends on elegance -- classed third -- as well as for their discretion and cleanliness.

But the French were the least ready to try a new language, unlike US tourists who were most likely to swallow their pride and order a pizza, baguette or a paella in the local lingo.

US tourists also got top marks for generosity -- as the biggest spenders and tippers -- but fell short on other counts as the least tidy, the loudest, the worst complainers, and the most badly dressed.

Despite cliches about beer-guzzling hordes descending on Mediterranean resorts each summer, Britons came a surprise second for their overall behaviour, politeness, quietness and even elegance -- second for dress sense only to the Italians.

But the model Japanese were followed by Canadians as the least likely to whinge when a trip goes wrong.

France's rivals for the "worst tourist" tag, Spaniards and Greeks came near the bottom of the pack in almost every category.

The study was released on Thursday.

[Kirsten]

That is interesting! I always wonder how German tourists are perceived in foreign countries.

Once I was buying groceries in a supermarket in Sweden when a group of German tourists entered the shop. They were acting loud and silly, and I was so ashamed of them. When I had to ask a salesperson for something, I spoke English because I didn't want him to think I'm one of them. LOL

Kirsten

[Barbara]

I don't know about tipping etc. - but for sense of dressing I feel Northern European, that is Germans, Britons and Netherlandish are the worst. No way can they get up to Italians. And French are much better than the Germans are in dressing. Certainly.
Of course that doesn't mean me

There is this saying: The others are tourist, we aren't

[Catty1]

LOL I read a saying somewhere: "If it's tourist season, why can't we shoot them?"

[Karen]

When we travel, I always try to be friendly and polite as I know how! I will never win any points for style, but that is not one of my goals in life anyway.

[Sonia59]

About French and foreign languages, it must be true! Every time there were foreign people at work, almost nobody wanted to talk to them. In restaurants, it's very common that the waitress will keep on speaking French (preferably fast ) although it is obvious foreign tourists don't catch a single word. Sometimes I felt so ashamed and annoyed that I helped with translating.

About tips, French are not used to give them because in France the price includes everything, you don't have to add a tip. We do it at restaurants when we are happy but the tip remains small and we don't have to do it.

Kirsten, about Germans acting loud and silly, I have often seen them doing this on the ski slopes but they were young and in groups. That's why we can see there are Germans around I think it's different with families with young kids.

Barbara, I agree with you about dressing

[kokopup]

I lived and traveled in Europe very extensively up until I retired a few years back. I was treated well almost everywhere I traveled. The only places that I was treated badly is in French speaking Belgium and France. In both places unless you spoke French you were treated like crap. I really loved visiting both countries but hated dealing with the the People. I don't know if I was treated that way because I was American or because I didn't speak French. Everywhere else in Europe people would try to communicate even if I didn't speak their language. In France they would ignore you if you were not trying to speak French even if they spoke English.