Via the always excellent World Hum, Rolf Potts discusses what nationalities makes for bad tourists in his Yahoo! column this week. Well, not exactly. His point is that the Brits make generalizations about other nationalities often—Americans don’t as much because so few of us have passports—and how that's not productive for the thoughtful tourist.
We should all learn to love one another, but I find discussions of national character fascinating. They may not be productive with a Brit rattling off which nationalities are the dirtiest, but asking a local what he or she thinks the national character is can open a window to the culture.
Just because other nationalities travel more than Americans or Germans doesn’t make them better tourists. Potts points to a study that shows Americans and Germanys are highly rated as tourists because they spend so much money when they travel. Compare that to the Dutch—famous for brown-bagging it at many a far-flung destination—and you’ll see that some of these studies are shell games to prove a point. Besides, as an American tourist, if you ask two reasonably intelligent questions in a row while abroad you’ll get this response: “Gosh, you don’t seem like an American!”
Comments