Top five worst tourist behaviours revealed – which are you guilty of?

THE five rudest tourist holiday behaviours have been revealed, showing how holidaymakers wind up locals when they go away.

Academics Ismail Shaheer and Neil Carr analysed comments from Reddit, complaining about holidaymakers’ “deviant behaviour” to see what annoyed people the most.

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The pair hope that their findings can help shape policies that will create a “peaceful co-existence” between locals and tourists in the future.

From the comments they analysed, they found 13 different types of rude behaviour that they put into a table, which was published in an article in the International Journal of Tourism Research – and the following made the top five.

1. Cultural Disregarders

These are people who ignore the culture of the destination they’re visiting, or behave insensitively towards local customs.

The example given was the people who visited Ground Zero in New York – before the construction of the monument or memorials, making it something of a tourist destination.

Ismael and Neil recommend that travellers educate themselves on cultural norms before going anywhere.

2. Disrupters

Disrupters are classed as people who affect the quality of life, or daily routine of local residents.

Comments from an annoyed Londoner were given as the example here, with the Brit complaining about tourists visiting St Paul’s Cathedral, only to get up, walk around and take selfies during services.

This is believed to be a side-effect of “over-tourism” which places like Venice are trying to minimise through new rules.

3. Photo clickers

These are the people who relentlessly take photos, even when it might not be appropriate or even safe to do so.

Examples given were people taking selfies at the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin and tourists snapping photos of locals without first asking permission.

Others shared examples of tourists destroying or disturbing wildlife and nature in their pursuit of the perfect holiday photos.

4. Litterers

Litterbugs are everywhere, but tourists contribute more than their fair share of rubbish.

This classification also covered people who use “public places for bodily functions such as spitting, defecation, and urination”.

Strict measures have been brought in in some places, like in Spain where you can even be fined for urinating in the sea.

5. Safety ignorers

Ignoring instructions and measures is something tourists often do that not only puts themselves at risk, but often the locals from the place they’re visiting as well.

An example was given from an American who complained about tourists at Yellowstone National Park “trying to get a picture of their kid riding a bison” resulting in the dad getting taken to hospital.

Covid-19 also provided new ground for tourists to be deemed unsafe, with different countries adopting different attitudes to dealing with the pandemic.

Also on the list of “deviant” tourists were those who physically or verbally abused hosts, specifically those working in the tourism business, drunks, vandals, reckless drivers, animal abusers, queue cutters, careless parents and lawbreakers.

Meanwhile, these tourists all shocked locals with their idiot behaviour, including posing with poisonous animals and breaking historic art.

And this person tried to open a window to stroke a lion while on a safari in Tanzania.

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