Americans Love Canadian Visitors. British Tourists? Not So Much.

Image: Canada Day in Ottawa. (Jim Byers/TravelPulse Canada)
Image: Canada Day in Ottawa. (Jim Byers/TravelPulse Canada)
by Jim Byers
Last updated: 11:35 AM ET, Thu November 14, 2019

They like us. They really like us.

A new study from the folks at us.jetcost.com finds that Americans rate Canada as the country with the nicest, most welcoming locals. They also rated Canadians as the second nicest tourists in the U.S..

Of the Americans surveyed, 86% said Canada was the nicest nation to visit. Next was Mexico (81%) and Japan (79%).

Asked what visitors to the US. they found to be the most friendly, the Japanese came out on top at 22%, followed by Canadians (20%) and Chinese (16%).

The study didn't indicate any reasons, but a majority of Americans in the survey said the British are the most annoying tourists, with 31% of respondents naming them as the worst. Next were Germans (16%) and Brazilians (13%).

The study found that three-fifths of Americans that regularly come into contact with tourists find them irritating. The study also found that 73% of Americans admit that they avoid fellow Americans when on vacation.

More than 4,200 Americans took part in the survey. All respondents said that they have been on vacation abroad at least once in the last two years themselves.

Initially, two fifths of respondents that were questioned (41%) revealed that they lived in an area where they were in regular contact with tourists. Of these, 62% said that they became regularly irritated with the visitors.

When asked what it was specifically about tourists that irritated the locals in their hometowns, the most annoying traits were found to be overcrowding tourist areas (37%), not tipping enough (32%), causing long lines (28%), often being drunk or disorderly (24%), and talking loudly and slowly in their own language (10%).

Finally, more than half of Americans (53%) revealed that they always try to befriend the locals when they are on vacation, while a quarter (24%) prefer to keep to themselves.

If you like this sort of study, check out a piece our friends at TravelPulse in the U.S. recently posted about what Europeans think of the U.S.

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Jim Byers

Senior Editorial Director

Jim Byers was travel editor for five years at the Toronto Star, which has the largest travel section in North America. He has...

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