Aw shucks, folks; we’re speechless.
A new study from the folks at usjetcost.com finds that Americans rate Canada as the country with the nicest, most welcoming locals. They also rated Canadians as the second nicest tourists in the U.S..
I’m personally baffled by this, but a majority of Americans in the study said the British are the most annoying tourists, with 31% of respondents naming them as the most bothersome. Next were Germans (16%) and Brazilians (13).
I get that Americans overthrew the British government a couple hundred years ago because of taxes and the high cost of tea and for bringing the spectacularly boring game of soccer to North American shores. I can understand folks in Spain or Germany or Amsterdam not wanting drunken British “lager louts” at their football games, but what Americans find annoying about the Brits I can’t quite figure out.
Anyhow, that’s why studies like this are so much fun.
Of course, it’s also nice that my adopted country (I moved here from the States 38 years ago and am a proud Canadian citizen) scored so well on the welcoming meter. Of the Americans surveyed, 86% said Canada was the nicest nation to visit. Next was Mexico (81%) and Japan (79%).
Asked what visitors they found to be the most friendly, the Japanese came out on top at 22%, followed by Canadians (20%) and Chinese (16%).
I personally find Americans to be quite welcoming, but the us,jetcost.com study found that three-fifths of Americans that regularly come into contact with tourists find them irritating. The study also found that 73% of Americans admit that they avoid fellow Americans when on vacation. Given the political divisions in the U.S. right now, that’s probably not a bad idea.
More than 4,200 Americans took part in the survey. All respondents said that they have been on vacation abroad at least once in the last two years themselves.
Initially, two fifths of respondents that were questioned (41%) revealed that they lived in an area where they were in regular contact with tourists. Of these, 62% said that they became regularly irritated with the visitors.
When asked what it was specifically about tourists that irritated the locals in their hometowns, the most annoying traits were found to be overcrowding tourist areas (37%), not tipping enough (32%), causing long lines (28%), often being drunk or disorderly (24%), and talking loudly and slowly in their own language (10%).
Finally, more than half of Americans (53%) revealed that they always try to befriend the locals when they are on vacation, while a quarter (24%) prefer to keep to themselves.
If you like this sort of study, here’s a story my friends at TravelPulse in the U.S. recently posted about what Europeans think of the U.S.
