Expedia.fr (a French travel web site) surveyed 4,000 employees at hotels in 6 nations and the French were rated the worst tourists in a survey which asked about politeness, eagerness of tourists to speak local languages, generosity and other factors.
The French did come in second place behind Italians for attire. The Japanese once again were ranked number one for factors such as quietness, politeness, and cleanliness. After the Japanese, hotel workers liked the German, British and Canadians.
Americans fared low in the survey with an 11th place tie with the Thais. Americans did score high for attempting to speak local languages (a spot French scored low on) and for tips and generosity. Both Americans and French were seen as complainers.
I hate to say it, but Brits abroad are generally the worst (most drunk, loud, bitchy, and rude). Americans come 2nd place except they've become more scarce lately.
It's a French site, so somehow think the data is skewed.
A person meets one rude french tourist in his lifetime, and he declares all french tourists rude. Another person pins it on Americans from the whole 2 he meets.
4000 hotels, Germany, the UK, Italy, France, Canada and the US... Hardly seems like a research done in some backwater place without any exposure to the outside world except for a foreigner every twenty years.
And I wasn't under the impression that profiling was bad. If you can categorise people by certain qualities and demands they have, that only increases the quality of your services to them. If I want to branch out into an American-only hotel (no clue why, but still), there're statistics to help me decide what to do and how to choose my staff. Statistics and profiling is important. Prejudices and hasty conclusions, on the other hand, are bad. But they are not the same.
an American who is absolutely lost or confused I stop and give them some help since I've lived in the area for a while now. However, there are those few Americans that when I hear them from 500 meters away and they are loud and rude and have no idea that many Germans actually speak English. I start speaking to my wife in German and pretending I'm not an American because they are so embarrassing.
In SE Asia (especially Thailand and India) the Israelis (how come we don't call them Israelites anymore) are considered to be the worst tourist. I've been to places in Thailand where they have signs up that say "No Israelis". I saw an Israeli in a 7-11 in Thailand trying to barter the price of a can of beer.
that as a Brit, i am very polite when i go abroad, i learn key words from the language, so that i can communicate on whatever level with locals, makes it more of a holiday for me.
Also I know a lot of Brits that are loud, drunk, disorderly, but from my experience i've only seen this in area's that tender to such behaviour; pubs, clubs, general night life area's.
As far as I know, and correct me if I'm wrong, but at home customer service is nonexistent and it may reflect that when some French travel abroad because that is what they are accustomed to.
