I ran across this list of the best and worst tourists a while ago, and started thinking about how it affects the perceptions many people have in regards to people from other countries.
Since tourism has become such serious business in many countries, we should pause for a moment to consider how deeply perceptions of who are "good tourists" and who are "bad tourists" could effect such an influential part of a country's economy.
Should we allow our perception of tourists to also affect our perception of a nation as a whole? We abhor generalizations yet we make them all the time.
That being said, here is short run-down of which countries are said to have the best and worst tourists. Research provided by online travel service Expedia and reported by the BBC News.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/2137729.stm
The Best Tourists:
1. Germans
2. Americans
3. Japanese
4. Italians
5. A tie between French, Norwegian, and Swedish tourists
The Worst Tourists:
17. A tie between Argentinian, Finnish, Czech tourists as well as New Zealanders
21. Indians
22. A tie between the Irish and the Israelis
24. British tourists
Some comments from the article on the best and worst tourists highlighted often stereotypical but important perceptions about certain types of tourists.
"...Germans were the best-behaved and the British, Irish and Danish the worst..."
"...Americans were judged the most courteous and the British the rudest, alongside the Russians and Canadians..."
"...The Italians, Spanish and Germans are most likely to try local food, but the Britons, Indians and burger-loving Americans are more likely to shy away from native delicacies..."
"...But the Germans did not perform well in the spending and tipping stakes and were described as the meanest nation - closely followed by the British.
The big spenders were the Americans, then the Japanese and Russians..."
Now open for discussion:
From what countries do your "good tourists" and "bad tourists" come from and why?
Have you, yourself always been a good tourist?