Europe hotels give 5 stars to Indian crudeness

Survey polling 15,000 hoteliers rates tidy Japanese as best tourists; French voted the worst tourists

LONDON: The best tourists in the world are the Japanese, followed by Americans and the Swiss, a survey based on views from hoteliers across Europe said on Wednesday.

Based on responses from 15,000 hoteliers, the survey, carried out on behalf of travel Web site Expedia, showed that the worst tourist nation is France, followed by India, China, and Russia.

Respondents said they disliked Indian tourists for being loud, untidy, and poorly behaved. Americans were judged the most courteous and the British the rudest, alongside the Russians and Canadians.

Japanese tourists stood out for being polite and tidy, securing 35 per cent more votes than the Americans, who came second. Swiss tourists were commended for being quiet and considerate, unlike the Britons, who were judged to be the fifth worst tourists because of their rude and noisy behaviour.

But British travellers seemed to have ‘improved’ because five years ago, they were on top of the league of terrible tourists. Part of the Britons’ problem was explained by Simon Calder, travel editor of UK’s The Independent newspaper. He told Radio 4’s Today programme: “We put little value on learning languages and the British consequently are guilty of cultural and linguistic arrogance.”

Calder said in Europe, “resorts [steel] themselves for another miserable summer when the British invasion begins in earnest”.

Despite Britons’ faults, hoteliers, however, look favourably upon their spending habits, voting them the third biggest holiday spenders after Americans and Russians.