A survey has indicated that French tourists are the worst in the world, coming across as “penny-pinching, rude and terrible at languages”.

Published: 13 Jul 2009

A survey has indicated that French tourists are the worst in the world, coming across as “penny-pinching, rude and terrible at languages”.

The study by Expedia asked 4,500 hotels worldwide to rank tourists on their behaviour.

Japanese tourists - seen as clean and tidy, polite, quiet and uncomplaining - came top for the third year running.

“It’s mainly the fact that they (French) speak little or no English when they’re abroad, and they don’t speak much of the local language,” Expedia marketing director Timothee de Roux told radio station France Info. He said that 90 percent of French people did their traveling at home.

“So when they’re on holiday they can be a bit stressed, they’re not used to things, and this can lead them to be demanding in a way which could be seen as a certain arrogance.”

In Europe, the British were seen by the hoteliers as the worst behaved.

Jonathan Cudworth, the head of product marketing at Expedia.co.uk, said: “Being voted the worst tourists in the world by our closest neighbours highlights the fact that the `Brits Abroad’ moniker is a label we still haven’t managed to shrug off.”

“While we are in second place in the global best-tourist rankings, we clearly have a job to do to convince our European counterparts and those at home that we can be better behaved on holiday.”

Britons came second for their overall behaviour, politeness, quietness and even elegance - second for dress sense only to the Italians.