Study labels Indians as ‘worst tourists’

According to the findings of a recent global survey conducted by Expedia, a major online travel company, Indian tourists have been rated as among the worst travellers in the world among the 27-odd countries involved in the study. The survey held in association with almost 4,000 hoteliers around the world, judged tourists on criteria like manners, willingness to assimilate local culture and cleanliness among other things. While the Japanese have been rated the best, France and China are close contenders with India when it comes to starting off on the wrong foot in a new country.

Chennaiites believe that there could be a ring of truth to these findings as Abhishek Damani, an independent travel operator based in the city says, “There’s a running joke in the travel industry which goes, ‘Wherever an Indian goes, the world knows.’ It’s because a majority of Indian travellers (most of them first time travellers to a foreign destination), lack basic courtesy like punctuality and patience. It’s not uncommon to find a travel group abroad waiting for the Indian contingent to turn up. Similarly, Indians have no respect for queues and that is looked upon as a very serious civic offence abroad. Many international hotels allow you to check in only post 12 noon, but we have a tendency to barge in and ask for our accommodation even prior to that.”

He adds, “There have been quite a few instances that have contributed to Indians being marked as uncouth visitors. At a recent tour manager’s meet, a member of an international hospitality concern commented that Indians are highly conservative tippers and many concierges are in fact offended by the meagre tips doled out by Indian tourists. To add to that, when Indian tourists vacate a hotel room, they tend to leave it in the shabbiest possible manner — bedspreads are upturned, wet towels strewn about on expensive carpets, etc.”

A Balagopal, a senior flight engineer working with a major airline company, and a frequent flier says, “One of the biggest quirks Indian travellers have is the region inflection that seeps into their speech. We often tend to interrupt others and are used to speaking boisterously whether in a private or public space.”

However, there are also those who strongly feel that it’s the gregarious nature of Indians that makes us who we are, and one of the reasons why Indians are misunderstood in the first place. Shreyas Deshmukh, a Chennaiite who is currently pursuing his PhD in Anthropology says, “Indians are very close knit as families and communities. So they have no qualms in mingling with anybody, whether strangers or acquaintances. When they carry the same culture to the western nations, where people are a lot more private and formal, it gets misunderstood as lack of concern for privacy.”

Shreyas adds, “For those complaining about the Indian’s hesitation in sampling local cuisine, there’s a good reason for it. A majority of Indians are vegetarians or partly vegetarians, which makes it extremely hard for them to adapt to purely non vegetarian fare offered in most foreign nations. Even the medium of cooking is predominantly lard or animal fat. Apart from this, in many foreign countries, the food tends to be served cold, whereas in India, we are used to consuming food, fresh off the stove.”