Yup, everyone hates the french 
Lifestyle News
Pushy French are world's worst tourists
Posted: 10 July 2009 0939 hrs
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PARIS : 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.
- AFP/il
