A [url=http://www.expedia.co.uk/daily/press/releases/Best%20Tourist.doc]recent survey by Expedia ranked different countries on how welcome their toursits are abroad. The results were kind of suprising(to me at least). The survey ranked the Germans as the best tourists, followed by the Americans and Japanese. At the bottom of the list were the English, who were ranked significantly worse than the next closest nations, Ireland and Israel. Among the surprising individual rankings were the fact that Americans were ranked as the most polite, and trailed only the Germans and French in their effort to speak the local language.
So it the stereotype of the “ugly American” abroad dead? Or is this just a fluke result(or maybe innaccurate)? I hope it’s accurate, I travel a lot and I swear, we Americans are trying!
I think the result is skewed somewhat by the fact that they’re looking at pleasure travelers, as opposed to business travelers. Pleasure travelers want to visit other countries, and so generally don’t have the whiny behavior of people who don’t want to be there. Add in the availability of American products and brand names overseas and there’s a lot less reason to complain.
On the other hand, when I was in the Navy, several of my shipmates were less than respectful of the Jewish laws of Kashrut and the Sabbath when our ship was in Israel, getting in the face of the poor Pizza Hut waitress when she explained that she couldn’t put pepperoni or sausage on their pizza, and that they couldn’t understand why everything but the USO was closed Friday night and Saturday. So, I think to some degree, among certain people, the behavior does hold up.
I spent ten weeks backpacking in Europe eighteen months or so ago, and I’m afraid that lots of the old stereotypes seemed to apply. We met lots of nice Americans, but a few really obnoxious ones too. I think maybe that there are just so many Americans travelling, there are bound to be a few idiots around, and they tend to stick out in people’s minds because the stereotype is there.
I travel to Europe a far amount on business.
I have always tried to lean some of the local language, and be as polite as possible to make for for my fellow Americans who say stuipd things like
There are ugly tourists of every nationality, certainly.
I have experienced more ugly Americans (including the Californian snowboarder at an outback Australian truck-stop who demanded they make cous-cous for him) than other nationalities–but, then again, if your only exposure of tourists was Ayia Napa, or Bangkok, or Falaraki, or Ibiza, I imagine you’d be thinking solely of the ugly Briton.
My guess is that the ugly American stereotype is more widespread because historically Americans have been better able to afford international travel to a range of destinations. I imagine the ugly Briton stereotype is far more common in southern Europe than the ugly American.
I think it’s an unfair scale, because the ‘ugliness’ comes in many guises.
The ‘Ugly American tourist’ stereotype is ugly due to ignorance of local customs, history and geography, vocal volume, and unfair demands on sub-standard service industries.
Whereas the ‘Ugly English tourist’ (though the survey did, I wouldn’t group Scots, Welsh and NI in it, because we English really are the worst) is a boorish, violent, vandalistic, drunken, semi-naked slob, who makes the Ugly American look like a birthday present.
It’s the tourist industries own fault for creating the concept of ‘cheap package deals’ from the UK. Two weeks in the sun deals for the cost of about 3 days work. No wonder so many go.
Millions per year arriving on islands with a permanent population of thousands. And the price of alcohol there!!! (Eek…you almost feel you HAVE to drink). They created a monster…
i just came back from living for a year in france. i met people of many different nationalities, though for the most part i just interacted with the french in the french language (i avoided the tourist areas).
i find american tourists the worst (and many french people were surprised and gratified to hear this, since they’ve had problems with americans too, but they didn’t think an american would agree with them) for several reasons.
first, probably, is because it’s my culture and it reflects badly on me as well when people learn i’m an american, even as well as i speak french. also, i can’t stand the american accent in french.
but besides that, there are distinct cultural differences. americans go to restaurants, and they assume that they’ll get the same service as at home, ie, being waited on hand and foot, the server checking on them constantly. but in france, it would be intrusive for a server to do that…they leave you alone to chill and talk (since dinner is an event a couple hours long) and come over if you want them for something. and americans don’t know how to moderate the volume of their voices.
to be fair, americans are a hell of a lot better at trying to use what little french they know, even if it’s just bonjour, merci, and au revoir. the british are much worse about that.
all i know is that the americans were always the ones i avoided.