Tourists in Europe
The results of a survey of 15,000 hotel owners. For those who don't speak French, the worst countries are on the left and the best on the right. You can click the red arrow in the lower right corner and mouse over each icon to see the categories and who did best and worst in each. Very surprisingly, Americans were the best at speaking the language of the country they were in (but we also dressed the worst and complained the most.)

We have a lot of tourist influx from the UK recently. Sorry to say this but they have established very bad reputation in a very short time. Pub owners and waiter/waitress are afraid of them because some of the worst behaved dreadfully when they had a few glasses of beers. No similar complaints towards tourists from Ireland and other countries.

Blame Canada! So the list is the appreciation of hotel owners for guests from certain countries? What made the French get so low on that list? I know most Russians going abroad have more money than manners and Brits tend to drink far too much and get abusive too I also thought we Dutch were quite good at complaining. Perhaps there aren't enough of us to make an impression?

Some years ago I took a walking holiday along the Austro-Czech border. Arriving at one Gasthof a delightful meal and glass of bier was gratefully consumed. The waiter returned and asked if I would like a second glass which I refused. He looked confused and there was a hurried consultation with the proprieter who came over and said, 'Excuse me asking but do you mean are not Australian?' I explained the subtle difference between England and Australia (i.e. half-a-planet) - well, it was a very rural part of Austria - and the atmosphere lightened considerably. I never did get to the bottom of all this but it seems that they had had a stream of people from down-under that summer who had all drunk far too much and not been very nice to the locals. I was puzzled by this because - to be honest - whilst I have always realised that Australians are a robust folk, I had never seen them quite in that light. But perhaps my judgement was slewed by the very postitive impressions made on me by the teenage neice of the Abp. of Sydney with whom I had a very pleasant friendship at one time.

Les Francais se refusent le plus a parler la langue du pays - ha, it would seem that the British are not the worst for expecting everyone else to speak their native language. :wink: EDIT 888 posts - cool number 8)

I just can't see getting all obnoxious and rude in a place where I didn't speak the native tongue. Hard enough to get by without causing trouble. I'd rather not piss off the people whom I might be dependent on for directions/advice, etc.

Ja hallo! Waar blijft die soep? Hebben we al een uur geleden besteld, lui stuk spanjool! En er staat ook nog steeds geen majo op tafel. Het is toch godsgeklaagd. Betaal je je bekant scheel om hier te komen, maar een beetje service is dan weer teveel gevraagd. Een schande, dat is het! Like that? I must admit that some of my fellow countrymen and women completely fail to prepare themselves for any trip oversees, relying on the tried and tested method of waving money, hands and speaking loudly, until the deal is satisfactory.

I find that travel brings out the best and worst of a nations characteristics. This is because, in my experience, people ravel for two distinct reasons. The first is because they have a genuine interest in other people’s culture and history. The second are travelling just so that they can play ’one-upmanship’ with their envious friends and relations when they get back home. I do think the worst of the worse are the English ( Scots, Irish and Welsh tend to be a whole lot better and have more linguistic skills ). I find the Japanese horribly irritating, they are nice people and mean well but everything has to stop for a photo opportunity. I’ve seen them bring the traffic to a standstill outside the Houses of Parliament because every single one of a party of twenty has had to have a photo of Big Ben and they will wander out into the road to get it. They seem unaware of traffic. Also a drunk Japanese businessman is even worse than a drunk English footy fan IMHO. It annoys the living daylights out of me when people travel to a foreign country and can’t even learn the words for ’please’ and ’thank you’ in a foreign tongue. That’s just downright pig ignorant.