Minichan

The bad reputation of Chinese tourists overseas is not news anymore, but the news of Chinese tourists carving on the Egyptian temple attracted many echos of complaint from tourist guides who serve Chinese tourists overseas.

One Dutch tourist guide who always serves the Chinese tourist's group on the Egypt tour and who has a doctorate in Chinese history was reduced to tears when he summed up the ten characteristics of Chinese tourists.

Chinese tourists lack culture awareness. It is not because their foreign language is not good enough, but they don't have the patience or desire to listen, but prefer to stay together and make noise. What they look for in a British museum is Chinese ceramics, and the artworks of Zhang Daqian and Qi Baishi in the Louvre. They don't have any interest in other cultures.
When Chinese tourists visit a foreign museum, the guide should be careful in regard to several things: first stop them from using flash-lights while taking photos; second, keep them from touching the artworks in the museum; third, warn them not to crowd others out when taking photos.
It seems that the most important thing for Chinese tourists is money, so when they saw the Chinese ceramics in the British Museum, they kept on debating about how much it's worth and even made comparisons with the auction prices of similar products in China. However, if you asked them the differences between the ceramics of the Song dynasty and the ceramics of the Yuan dynasty, they rarely know the answer.
Chinese tourists like to take photos, and no matter where they are, and whether they had other's permission or not, they 'll take photos of local strangers or local premises. Some Chinese tourists even explained that, "We Chinese never really care about other's privacy, and have never been respecting other's privacy, so of course we will act here in the same way."
When the guide introduces the local culture, they like to boast how much older Chinese culture is compared to the local culture; when they visit the most classic monuments in Europe and the Middle East, they are busy taking their own photos and after that they stay together playing cards. So the reason for them to visit these classic monuments is merely a wish "to have been there"; they are not intellectual, not spiritual, and for them it is merely a superficial touring. The Chinese tourists also know very little about western religion, so they can hardly understand the Italian culture of heavenly portrayals, or appreciate the great art-works of Leonardo Da Vinci and Michelangelo.
Chinese tourists are not only contemptuous to regulations of foreign countries, but also contemptuous to the regulations of their own country. For example, once an American guide took a Chinese tourist group to visit Zhang jiajie ; he saw a man crossing the railing to take a photo, so he reminded him that it was illegal, but it turned out the American guide was followed for quite a long time, and was punched by the man from behind when nobody was around and the man then ran away immediately. So this Chinese not only disobeyed the rules, but was also a coward.
When it comes to the delay of American airlines, it is indeed very poor, however, the responses of the American tourists and Chinese tourists are quite different. The American tourists complain in low voice, they are more concerned about how to solve the problem; if they don't have any answers, they would just wait patiently and mutter the complaint to themselves. However, Chinese tourists who normally pretend to be very good in front of their officials like to look very brave at the American airport and openly demonstrate their disgust with the situation.
It is true that less and less Chinese people are spitting publically these days, but they sometimes publically pull off their socks and eat with their heels resting on a chair, or noisily swallow food, or sneeze loudly without covering their mouth, and Chinese children are allowed to do wees everywhere. Furthermore, no matter how many times it is mentioned to them, they don't seem to care.
Chinese tourists may be very generous when purchasing luxury goods, however, they are very stingy with service tips. Many tourist guides know this characteristic of Chinese tourists, so they secretly delete a lot of wonderful tourist destinations and some presentations. Some guides even directly bring them to stores to go shopping, instead of taking them on an excursion. The quality of the tourist experience is thereby vastly reduced and the matter seems to be getting worse.
The etiquette of Chinese tourists is very poor. With the rise in value of Chinese currency overseas, while deprecated at home, more and more Chinese travel overseas. However, the basic quality of Chinese people is a shame to the old country with its 5000 year ancient civilization. It is true that China has a very long history, but Chinese people's civility of nowadays is rather deplorable, which shows itself in no uncertain terms when Chinese travel overseas.

Confucius Weeping in Heaven

Westerners used to have an image of China as a country steeped in the Confucian way of life where the principles of propriety, reverence, courtesy, goodness and benevolence were held in high esteem. These, though, are just the qualities that are lacking observing Chinese tourists. What has gone wrong? The problem is that the old China has made way for the new China where everything has been reversed. Since the Cultural Revolution what was once regarded as good is now regarded as bad, and what once regarded as bad is now regarded as good. Chinese tourists only reflect the philosophy of the totalitarian regime under which strict rule they have to live and were brought up in. They are not bad people, but unfortunately they don't know any better. It is time that the new makes way for the old again and Chinese people can return to the values of old that they had to abandon by force.

“the hotel should ban chinese tourists from staying”
2 of 5 stars Reviewed November 10, 2012

I stayed for 3 days in August. The hotel itself was good. The location was totally great. 3 minutes walk to the airport, and about 15 minutes to the center of the city by bus. Staffs are very kind when you ask something. Only one bad point is the hotel seems to be one of chinese tourists options. When I stayed at this hotel, maybe 1 or 2 group of chinese tourists stayed in the same floor and they were so noisy I asked the front desk to change my room. They gather at one room and make noise as if the hotel was their home. They were very noisy also at dining room, so I could not feel at home and enjoy the meal.
I strongly ask the hotel not to allow chinese people to stay. Otherwise, tourists from other countries will stop to use.

Stayed August 2012, traveled solo

The numbers of Chinese tourists travelling around the world is increasing rapidly but with this increased mobility has come a lot of criticism and negative media coverage. Chinese tourists are now notorious in many destinations throughout the world and are perceived as lacking in manners as well as being loud, uncultured and uneducated. This poor reputation has even lead to Chinese tourists being banned in some luxury shops and hotels in Paris – one of the top destinations for Chinese visitors.

Is there any truth in the belief that Chinese tourists are uncultured and rude and why has this idea even come about? This article explores the answer to these questions and what measures the Chinese government has been taking to try to improve the image of its people overseas.

For mainland Chinese, travelling abroad is a relatively new phenomenon with non-business people only being allowed to leave China from the 90s onwards. At that time it was only the mega-rich who could afford to travel abroad but, with the boom of China’s middle class from the early 2000s, more and more Chinese have had the means and inclination to travel. In 2013, the number of Chinese travelling abroad amounted to 100 million. The independent brokerage and investment group CLSA estimates that the number of mainland Chinese outbound tourists will total at least 200 million by 2020.

Favourite destinations for mainland Chinese visitors tend to be Asian countries with Hong Kong and Macau being the most popular. Looking further afield, the most popular non-Asian countries are the USA and France which, in 2012, attracted 1.5 and 1.3 million visitors from the mainland respectively.

Chinese tourists also spend more than any other nationality when they are abroad. According to the UN World Tourism Organization, Chinese tourists spent 102 billion USD in 2012 – the highest in the world. This spending power is very attractive to tourist sites throughout the world, so why do some areas not welcome Chinese visitors?

Unfortunately for the Chinese, they have a very bad reputation from Hong Kong to the USA and from the Maldives to Egypt. This is due to several factors including tourists’ behaviour when they are overseas. There have been several stories in the media about badly behaved Chinese tourists including the boy who graffitied his name onto an ancient temple in Luxor, Egypt or the mother who let her child defecate in Kaohsiung airport, Taiwan, when they were just a few metres from a toilet. These incidents have made international news and have even lead to discussions in China’s Foreign Ministry.

They have had such an impact on China’s image as a country, that the government has created guidelines outlining proper behaviour for its citizens when they are abroad. They also developed an advertising campaign that was broadcast on television networks. The guidelines are set out in a 62-page document which advises against such things as nose picking, slurping food loudly and stealing life jackets from aeroplanes.

Wang Yang, Vice Premier of China said of Chinese tourists "They make a terrible racket in public places, scrawl their names on tourist sites, ignore red lights when crossing the road and spit everywhere. This damages our national image and has a terrible effect."

This behaviour has lead to Chinese tourists being considered uneducated by many people who come into contact with them. Chinese tourists also tend to travel as part of organised tour groups who are seen as loud and rude by other people. These groups have made such an impression in some places that they have been refused entry to shops or hotels. One luxury Parisian boutique hotel went so far as to ban Chinese tour groups in 2012, but later amended the ban to all tour groups no matter what their nationality.

This bad behaviour and lack of cultural and sophistication has meant that Chinese tourists are looked upon negatively by other nations, especially in Hong Kong where Mainlanders are often referred to as “locusts”. A survey by the University of Hong Kong found that negative feelings towards mainland Chinese was increasing exponentially year on year and more than 50% of readers of the South China Morning Post put this down to “ill-behaved tourists”

Chinese tourists are also seen as just travelling to buy and show off luxury goods rather than to learn about the culture and see the historical sights of the country they are visiting. There are even some that say the Chinese are not discerning about what they buy, they just care whether it has a famous name or not. The German tourist board even referred to Chinese tourists as customers rather than visitors. However, the Chinese penchant for luxury goods isn’t all negative, according to CLSA, Chinese tourists helped boost the global luxury goods sector by 41% between 2009 and 2012.

The Chinese aren’t all about spending money, in some areas they are considered cheap as they don’t tend to tip in hotels and restaurants. This is due to the lack of a tipping culture in mainland China and not being aware of the cultural differences in the country they are visiting. It has been reported that some five-star hotels in the Maldives even remove kettles from the rooms of Chinese guests in order to force them to eat in restaurants on the islands rather than eating pot-noodles.

Eventually these negative views of Chinese tourists will likely improve as mainland Chinese become increasingly mobile and able to experience more of the world and learn the customs and etiquette of different countries. This learning process is a slow one but is one that all nations have been through. It wasn’t too long ago that all USA tourists were seen as loud, brash and rude.

Solo tourism is also growing in popularity meaning that the tour groups that have garnered such a bad reputation will slowly begin to decrease and a new type of Chinese tourist will emerge. Moreover, there has been a growth in the number of younger people who are able to travel abroad. These people have grown up with films, TV shows and books about other countries and are, therefore, more aware of cultural variations. The growth in a younger demographic of well-educated and cultured travellers should go a long way to repairing China’s reputation.

By Li Hui and Ben Blanchard

BEIJING (Reuters) - From faking marriage certificates to get honeymoon discounts in the Maldives to letting children defecate on the floor of a Taiwan airport, Chinese tourists have recently found themselves at the center of controversy and anger.

Thanks to microblogging sites in China, accounts of tourists behaving badly spread like wildfire across the country, provoking disgust, ire and soul-searching.

While in the past such reports might have been dismissed as attacks on the good nature of Chinese travelers, people in the world's second-largest economy are starting to ask why their countrymen and women are so badly behaved.

"Objectively speaking, our tourists have relatively low-civilized characters," said Liu Simin, researcher with the Tourism Research Centre of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

"Overseas travel is a new luxury, Chinese who can afford it compare with each other and want to show off," Liu said. "Many Chinese tourists are just going abroad, and are often inexperienced and unfamiliar with overseas rules and norms."

When a story broke recently that a 15-year-old Chinese boy had scratched his name into a 3,500-year-old temple in Egypt's Luxor, the furor was such that questions were even asked about it at a Foreign Ministry news briefing.

"There are more and more Chinese tourists travelling to other countries in recent years," ministry spokesman Hong Lei said on Monday.

"We hope that this tourism will improve friendship with foreign countries and we also hope that Chinese tourists will abide by local laws and regulations and behave themselves."

Other incidents have attracted similar anger, including that of a mother who let her children defecate on the floor of Kaohsiung airport in Taiwan, just meters (feet) from a toilet. She did put newspaper down first.

Embarrassment over the behavior of some Chinese tourists has reached the highest levels of government, which has tried to project an image of a benign and cultured emerging power whose growing wealth can only benefit the world.

"TERRIBLE RACKET"

This month, Vice Premier Wang Yang admonished the "uncivilized behavior" of certain Chinese tourists, in remarks widely reported by state media and reflecting concern about how the increasingly image-conscious country is seen overseas.

"They make a terrible racket in public places, scrawl their names on tourist sites, ignore red lights when crossing the road and spit everywhere. This damages our national image and has a terrible effect," Wang said.

The central government has reissued guidelines on its main website on what it considers acceptable behavior for tourists, including dressing properly, queuing up and not shouting.

To be sure, the influx of newly wealthy Chinese travelling around world has bought economic benefits widely welcomed in many countries, and many tourists are well-behaved and respectful.

More than 83 million Chinese tourists travelled overseas last year, and Chinese expenditure on travel abroad reached $102 billion in 2012, the highest in the world according to the U.N. World Tourism Organization.

By 2020, about 200 million Chinese are expected to take an overseas holiday every year.

Criticism of bad behavior has in the past been leveled at American, Japanese and Taiwanese tourists, when they were also enjoying new wealth and going abroad for the first time.

Eventually, experts say, the criticism will fade.

"Travelling is a learning experience for tourists," said Wang Wanfei, a tourism professor at Zhejiang University. "They learn how to absorb local culture in the process, and get rid of their bad tourist behavior."

When a busload of Chinese tourists took a break at a highway toll station near Frankfurt, Germany, on an autumn afternoon in October, their translator and guide Linda Li told her charges they could use the toilet for €0.7 (HK$6.62).

"If you don't have the change, come to me," the veteran tour guide recalled telling them.

The mention of the fee caused a stir on the bus. Many were on their first overseas trip and grumbled that back home in China pay-to-use toilets cost only 0.5 yuan (HK$0.63). Several of the men decided not go to the loo. Instead, they walked to an open spot to relieve themselves.

Li shook her head and looked away - she had half-expected them to do so because it is common among first-time Chinese travellers.

But what happened next took even her by surprise: a well-dressed middle-aged man followed suit to pee in public.

"I was dumbfounded," said the tour guide of seven years. "This same person who refused to pay €0.7 had on the same trip spent thousands of euros on a Vacheron Constantin watch."

The incident captured all too acutely the conundrum host countries find themselves in: boorish Chinese tourists bringing them piles of cash but also mountains of problems. The visitors seem to have the means, but not the manners. Locals get upset, facilities get damaged, tempers are frayed, and in many cases other tourists turn tail when they know the Chinese are coming, causing a dent in earnings.

And their ranks keep growing. By November, more than 100 million mainland Chinese had travelled abroad this year, a record for China, according to the China National Tourism Administration (CNTA). For the whole of last year, 98.2 million went overseas. Asian destinations, including Hong Kong and Macau, continued to receive the bulk of the travellers - 85.4 million by November. Europe, their second most popular destination, hosted 3.4 million over the same period, while Africa, in third place, drew 2.7 million Chinese visitors.

Their burgeoning numbers mean bigger spending. The Chinese overtook Americans and Germans as the world's top-spending tourists in 2013, according to the World Tourism Organisation, an agency of the United Nations, (UNWTO). While the Chinese spent US$128.6 billion on international travel, Americans spent US$104.7 billion and Germans US$91.4 billion. The latest UNWTO data shows the Chinese remain the biggest spenders this year.

While this side of the balance sheet to Chinese tourism is welcomed, destination countries also have had to cope with the ugly side of this particular travel boom. Last year, a 15-year-old Chinese tourist defaced a stone sculpture in a 3,500-year-old Egyptian temple with graffiti, generating a stir worldwide and a backlash at home. Many Chinese cringed at the shame and embarrassment brought on them. The boy's parents later apologised.

In Hong Kong, tensions have risen against the Chinese tourists and spilled into furious name-calling. Anger reached boiling point earlier this year when a mainland couple allowed their two-year-old to defecate on a Hong Kong street. Mocking the mainlanders, a group of Hong Kong protesters sat on yellow plastic poos in a crowded mall.

Chinese tourists made international headlines yet again this month after four threw hot water and noodles at a Thai flight attendant. They were reportedly angry over their seating arrangements and the lack of receipts for their tickets. The CNTA promptly "blacklisted" the tourists from joining overseas tours offered by Chinese travel agencies.

Unruly travellers still give China bad press. Photo: SCMPSwamped by the avalanche of criticism against their citizens, the Chinese authorities are resorting to lecturing, cajoling and the law to change behaviour. The country's first tourism laws came into effect in October last year, tackling mostly domestic tourism infractions.

The authorities also published guidelines for travelling overseas, which state: "Tourists shall observe public order and respect social morality in tourism activities, respect local customs, cultural traditions and religious beliefs, care for tourism resources, protect the ecological environment, and abide by the norms of civilised tourist behaviour."

A month before that, the CNTA published an 64-page illustrated Guidebook for Civilised Tourism to educate the travelling public on social norms abroad, offering advice on topics from queue jumping to toilet use.

Even President Xi Jinping weighed in, urging his countrymen to behave overseas. "Do not leave water bottles everywhere. Do not damage coral reefs. Eat less instant noodles and more local seafood," Xi advised during an official visit to the Maldives in September.
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In the Indian Ocean island nation, whose economy relies heavily on tourism and which received 332,000 Chinese tourists last year, some luxury resorts last year stopped providing Chinese guests with hot water to stop them skipping meals in favour of cup noodles, triggering anger and calls for a boycott on China's social media.

"Sadly, Xi's speech has made no impact whatsoever on the tourists," said Jenny Wang, a Beijing-based Maldives travel agent. "The good ones are good, but the bad apples remain the same."

She added that many still did not tip, even though they had been advised to do so and told that service workers in the Maldives rely on tips to boost their meagre earnings.

Seasoned guides also point a finger at the cut-throat competition among travel agencies to sell tour packages. The low prices tend to attract lower-end customers who have not been exposed to the world through travel. While boorish behaviour broke all class barriers, those unused to travel tend were more likely to behave poorly, the agents said.

Li said that in recent years many mainland agencies would advertise tours at unrealistically low prices, sometimes barely covering the air tickets. To make money, tour guides would later be forced to collect extra fees from travellers, or take them on "shopping tours". Both practices have been banned by China's tourism authority.

On Ctrip.com, China's largest online travel agency, a six-day tour of Thailand from Shanghai was being sold for just 3,999 yuan (HK$5,000) last week. The package included a guide, meals, round-trip tickets and five nights' stay at "five-star hotels", according to its advertisement. A typical return flight from Shanghai to Bangkok would cost anything between 1600 and 2800 yuan.

"Travelling abroad is a luxury," said Li, who works for a top travel agency in Sichuan . "But the fact is we are selling our tours at such low prices that people on lower incomes and with little education can now easily afford them. Unlike seasoned travellers, they know little about foreign culture and customs.

"Most of the middle-class travellers I have worked with are educated, civilised and always well behaved.

"If we sell international tours for no less than 5,000 yuan, we will be able to weed out a lot of 'bad tourists'." She suggested China set minimum tour prices in law to end unfair competition and deceptive marketing.

Wang echoed Li's sentiments: "Those on a limited budget are usually rude and obsessed with taking advantages of others."

Tour guides say it is extremely hard to manage or "educate" the "bad" tourists. In the latest incident, the assault of the Thai flight attendant, the CNTA said it might also punish the tour guide travelling with them, but tour operators said this was unfair.

"If their parents failed to teach them good manners in all these years, how are we supposed to do it?" Li protested.

Travel experts also say that Chinese tourists tend to be unfairly tarred by the same brush as the mischief-makers even though many of the travellers behave impeccably.

"My mainland guests all turned out to be extremely polite and educated," said Liu Fong-yu, a lawyer who rents rooms at his home in Taipei to travellers on the popular online accommodation service, Airbnb.

"Once I took my guests to the Eslite bookstore, and they bought books by Haruki Murakami and Anton Chekhov.

"Two sisters who recently stayed with me chatted with me until 1am about the works of renowned Taiwanese writer and poet Chiang Hsun."

Retired engineer Shi Ming from Chengdu, Sichuan province, is a passionate traveller who tries to "observe and interact" with locals when touring. Despite her limited English, she made friends across 23 states during a tour of the United States in 2011.

During one flight she sat next to a native American woman.

"We chatted with the help of dictionaries and drawings," Shi said. "She shared her snacks and we exchanged life stories."

Li Jinglong, an assistant professor at the department of tourism management at Anhui University's School of Business, said: "Educating our tourists should be a priority for China. Otherwise, things will only get uglier."

China could start by encouraging its tourism industry to explore "education-based" tours, he said.

"In the US, Britain, Australia, and Taiwan, governments and NGOs have set up educational groups, for example in national parks, where visitors learn about nature and making a difference as a volunteer," Li said.

"In China, tourism is about making money.

"If we manage to teach Chinese travellers to respect and protect nature through such activities, they will become more civilised and responsible tourists wherever they go."

Other scholars, however, say courtesy begins at home. "We need to admit that Chinese people are rude abroad because they are rude at home," said Liu Simin, a researcher with the Tourism Research Centre of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

Many Chinese tourists were new to travel and had not mastered the skills of appreciating other cultures, Liu said. Like China itself, they catapulted from near-isolation to embracing the world in double quick time.

Chinese Vice Premier Wang Yang has criticized the "uncivilized behavior" of his countrymen when they travel abroad, which he says has harmed the nation's image. He blamed the "poor quality and breeding" of the Chinese tourists.

According to Shangaiist, Wang made the remarks during a meeting to discuss the country's new tourism law. He said that some particularly bad manners — talking loudly in public places, crossing the streets on red lights, public spitting — are giving a bad name to China.

Spitting is common in some parts of China, and many older Chinese do not consider it rude or impolite, says the BBC's Raymond Li. Ahead the Olympic Games in 2008, Beijing tried to get its citizens to improve their manners in public, including by reducing spitting and littering. Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping, who introduced anti-spitting rules in the 1980s, himself was known to keep a spittoon by his side, even during high-level diplomatic meetings.

Note the white spittoon placed near Deng's legs:

Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping meeting then-British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in Beijing in 1984. (Getty Images)

Among the many things the new tourism law aims to accomplish is "promote a healthy and civilized way to travel, to improve the level of civilization of tourists." It stresses that establishing a good image of Chinese tourists is the common responsibility of the government.

Last year, Chinese citizens made 83 million trips overseas, according to BBC's Celia Hatton, adding that China is already the single largest source of international tourism spending. A new report by the United Nations World Tourism Organization says Chinese travellers spent a record $102 billion overseas last year, a 40 percent jump from 2011.

Rising anti-mainland sentiment in Hong Kong has at times coincided with criticism of mainlander tourist etiquette. Some in Hong Kong seem to feel that, despite becoming wealthier, mainland Chinese didn't show sufficient improvement in their manners.

In this video posted on YouTube, a man identified as mainland Chinese is seen screaming and yelling at a female attendant on a passenger ship.

In an article in The Washington Post last year, Andrew Higgins wrote from Indonesia that the locals considered the growing presence of Chinese tourists as a mixed blessing, comparing it to the behavior of American visitors in the 1960s:

Mainland tourists can be “very difficult,” demanding rock-bottom rates and then often complaining about their accommodations. And, he added, they tend to be “very noisy,” something that raises eyebrows on an island that is dotted with Hindu temples. ...

Hartono, an ethnic Chinese and a fluent speaker of Mandarin, said he cannot understand the loud and pushy behavior of many of the Chinese visitors, characteristics that have made them Asia’s modern-day equivalent of the brash, overbearing “ugly Americans” of the 1960s who earned such notoriety in Europe and elsewhere.

The number of Chinese tourists visiting the United States has increased in recent years, and the U.S. Department of Commerce says that between 2010 and 2016, that number is expected to grow by a whopping 232 percent.