Expedia.com survey rates tourists

Indian tourist most impolite: Survey-India-The Times of India:

"Trailing India in the league of terrible tourists are the Chinese followed by the Russians and Brits, according to the latest survey by travel website Expedia. The Japanese were voted the world's best tourists, followed by the Americans and the Swiss."

The French enjoy a hard-won reputation as being among the rudest people to travel among. Now a survey of hotel managers by Expedia.com reports that they rate as the most obnoxious when they are the doing the traveling. Despite the "Ugly American" image of so many American tourists in the movies, even our own movies, we Americans managed to place second in the nice tourists rankings behind the Japanese and ahead of the Swiss.

One might wonder that the Indians were sufficiently numerous to show up in the survey. But the Indian economic boom of recent years has been marked by a great increase in foreign travel. I suspect that, in addition to rising wages, there is some impact here of what economists call the "wealth effect" - the value of publicly traded shares on the BSE now exceeds one trillion US dollars. BTW, an ad on the Times of India site gives a price of only $579 for a flight from Delhi to New York City.

Particularly galling to their French hosts must be the Indian penchant for package tours to bring along their own chefs to supply the tourists with a steady diet of home cooking. I just don't see the point; sampling local foods has to be one of the great pleasures of travel right along with getting to know something of other cultures' art, architecture and music.