Survey, French are worst tourists...

[urunobili]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090709/...rance_tourists

Thu Jul 9, 6:06 am ET

PARIS (Reuters Life!) – French tourists are the worst in the world, coming across as bad at foreign languages, tight-fisted and arrogant, according to a survey of 4,500 hotel owners across the world.

They finish in last place in the survey carried out for internet travel agency Expedia by polling company TNS Infratest, which said French holidaymakers don't speak local languages and are seen as impolite.

"It's mainly the fact that they speak little or no English when they're abroad, and they don't speak much of the local language," Expedia Marketing Director Timothee de Roux told radio station France Info.

"The French don't go abroad very much. We're lucky enough to have a country which is magnificent in terms of its landscape and culture," he said, adding that 90 per cent of French people did their traveling at home.

"So when they're on holiday they can be a bit stressed, they're not used to things, and this can lead them to be demanding in a way which could be seen as a certain arrogance."

French tourists are also accused of generally spending less than other nationalities when abroad.

De Roux said the French, not accustomed to leaving large tips at home where a service charge is automatically levied on restaurant bills, can seem "tight-fisted" compared with other nationalities.

The Japanese ranked top of the Best Tourist survey, with the British and the Germans judged the best of the Europeans.

But French tourists received some consolation for their poor performance, finishing third after the Italians and British for dress sense while on holiday.

[urunobili]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090709...YtcHVzaHlmcmVu

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

Carried out last month by TNS Infratest, 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.

[TheProfessor]

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

Is lies!

[ChumpDumper]

Why do they even go anywhere?

They're in France.

[spurs_fan_in_exile]

Why do they even go anywhere?

They're in France.

Because it's full of French people.

[sonic21]

Lies, i'm awesome

[mrsmaalox]

Eh, the French are okay. Traveling in Europe and Asia the most loud and obnoxious bunch I encountered were Italian, followed closely by drunk Americans.

[sonic21]

Unlike in America, cafes and restaurants in France directly include a 15 percent service charge in your check. This is required by French law as tips are assessed for taxation purposes. I'm only giving tips for a haircut.

French tourists don't represent the french population. If you come to france, nobody will mind if you don't speak french.

[Slomo]

...

French tourists don't represent the french population. If you come to france, nobody will mind if you don't speak french.

IS all lies!!!!

Are you KBP's french cousin?


Actually it's kinda a true, nobody will mind, as in nobody will give you the time of day if you can't ask in proper french.

[sonic21]

IS all lies!!!!

Are you KBP's french cousin?


Actually it's kinda a true, nobody will mind, as in nobody will give you the time of day if you can't ask in proper french.

depends on the people like in every country.

[mrsmaalox]

IS all lies!!!!

Are you KBP's french cousin?


Actually it's kinda a true, nobody will mind, as in nobody will give you the time of day if you can't ask in proper french.

Ha I didn't want to be rude, but I was going to reply that that was NOT my experience at all!

[spurs_fan_in_exile]

Reminds me of a joke from a professor. "If you're going to visit France you better be able to speak French if you want to get anything done. And if you want to get anything done quickly you need to be able to yell in German."

[Slomo]

depends on the people like in every country.

Sonic,

I think the American hate on all things French is exaggerated and often based on stereotypes - and I have said so on this forum in the past.

But, you are not known for being friendly towards foreigners - actually you often take pride in your chauvinism. I grew up in Paris (went to elementary school and Lycee), later I worked in France and for French companies, and now I'm responsible among other things for the french market for our company (I'm in France once or twice a month).

With all this experience most french people can't tell I'm a foreigner and I've seen numerous cases of french people being assholes to other people just because they didn't speak french. I've also listen to numerous comments made by foreigners and also french people on the subject.

Now there are exception to the rule, but seriously those are very rare.

OTOH I don't really agree with the worst tourist claim, I would have chosen a few other nations before the french...

[sonic21]

Slomo,

i'm with you, i don't like the french mentality but i've seen much worse.
I work with foreign scientists and researchers who enjoy coming to france and working with us. They never speak french and never have to deal with any problems.
I guess i thought it was like that in the majority of companies.

[Slomo]

Slomo,

i'm with you, i don't like the french mentality but i've seen much worse.
I work with foreign scientists and researchers who enjoy coming to france and working with us. They never speak french and never have to deal with any problems.
I guess i thought it was like that in the majority of companies.

I will agree with you that it is less evident and less frequent in a professional environment (which is also much less anonymous). But on the streets, bistros, shops (I swear the Galleries Lafayette must have "chauvinistic snotty " as a requirement when employing sales personnel) and other everyday social situation it's rampant.

I think fixing this is as likely as teaching the Italians to talk without using their hands (or to stop them ing about overcooked pasta)

Disclaimer: IMO every nations has a few quirks that are not really to its credit. Well everybody except Slovenian - don't hate us because we're beautiful, smart and modest.

[sonic21]

yea you need to find the good area for friendly people. I only hang out in the southeast of paris ( Bercy, Nation, Opera...).

at Gallery Lafayette, i never bought anything there.

i'm still hurt you compared me to KBP though.

[Slomo]

...

i'm still hurt you compared me to KBP though.

Sorry about that. It was uncalled for. I sincerely apologize.

[Drachen]

Unlike in America, cafes and restaurants in France directly include a 15 percent service charge in your check. This is required by French law as tips are assessed for taxation purposes. I'm only giving tips for a haircut.

French tourists don't represent the french population. If you come to france, nobody will mind if you don't speak french.

I couldn't disagree more. I stayed in Paris for about 4 days in '97 and everyone was nothing but rude. I had been an exchange student to Germany and it was me and 8 of my German friends. We began by trying to speak French (they had taken several years of French in school). All we got was dirty looks and no service. So we went somewhere else, and I spoke English. We got dirty looks and no service. Then we tried German, bad mistake, nuff said. Anyway this happened several times so we finally decided not to eat out and went to some store owned by an Arab and bought our food. This happened (mostly) near our hotel which was on one of the streets coming out from the Bastille memorial. It also happened around the Champs Elysee (sp?). We were there during Fete de la Music (no I don't know the spelling), and I lost my German group, so I went back to the hotel and asked an american group that we had earlier met if I could hang with them. We all went out and were having a good time (Fete is hands down the coolest "festival" that I have ever been a part of), but then a group of about 20 french teenagers came and jumped us. They took nothing, they just wanted to wail on us. On the way back to the hotel we stopped by a police station, we didn't think they could do anything, but wanted to warn them of this group. They shrugged their shoulders and told us that it was our fault for being foreigners during their party. We got back to the hotel I found my group and went right back out (I never wanted to go back in the first place, I was having too much fun and wasn't going to let a bunch of 16 year olds spoil it).
I will say, however, that when we went to Hendaye, France we met some of the nicest people on the trip. We stayed at a campsite and the owners wouldn't let us make our own dinners. They singled us 9 guys out to eat dinner with them every night (freakin good). I can't imagine it was cheap for them, though, because we were 9 guys between the ages of 17 and 19. Everyone we met in town were great too, though we spent most of our time in San Sebastian, Spain while we were staying in Hendaye

[phxspurfan]

I wonder where Chinese tourists ranked...

[DarkReign]

Our good friends just came back from a Europe vacation. They said Paris was cool, but the people were rude, FWIW.

[Tully365]

Kind of seems like a biased survey if some are complaining that French tourists don't speak the local language-- millions more people on the planet speak English and Spanish than French, so naturally they are at a disadvantage. I've rarely encountered bad French travelers. The worst to me are Australians, whose favorite occupation while vacationing seems to be to drink themselves blind in Australian themed bars with other Australians wherever they are, be it New York or Peru.

(My apologies to any nice Australians reading this!)

[Heath Ledger]

I play poker here in Vegas a lot, so I see players from all over the world. Repeatedly the french players seem obnoxious and very seldom do speak good english. Its not uncommon for one side of the table to be talking a lot of about the french poker players. I've met a few who were cool and who could speak good english but most were s in every sense of the word.

Oh yeah an the french are notorious for stiffing the dealers on tips as well as the tail waitresses.

[David Bowie]

IS all lies!!!!

Are you KBP's french cousin?


Actually it's kinda a true, nobody will mind, as in nobody will give you the time of day if you can't ask in proper french.

+1

You can be stuck at your table trying to order a drink and a sanwich unless you can muster some sort of french.

My mother was buying some pasteries in Paris and the guy didn't want to sell them to her and asked her why she didn't learn any French when she knew that she was going to be traveling to France

[bdictjames]

I wish they had put a link of the poll itself. There are more countries to the world than Japan, China, and those in Europe.

[DarkReign]

I wish they had put a link of the poll itself. There are more countries to the world than Japan, China, and those in Europe.

Name one.