How to avoid being an annoying tourist

Take note of these behaviours if you want to avoid annoying fellow travellers. Photo / 123rf

From seat kicking and littering to hogging pool loungers or playing loud music, there are many ways to be an annoying tourist.

However, one particular behaviour is the most loathed by travellers from the UK according to a recent survey.

After asking more than 1000 people to rank experiences on a scale of 1 to 10 (with 10 being the most annoying), Cruise Nation discovered certain behaviours tended to irk all travellers, while others weren’t too bothersome.

For example, playing loud music at your hotel will annoy many travellers, with a score of 7.6/10, but not as much as claiming a pool lounger in the morning with a towel, which had a score of 7.8/10.

Similarly, being drunk and rowdy in public was largely considered annoying (8/10) but not as bad as a child who incessantly kicks your seat on a plane (8.5/10).

However, the singular most annoying thing, according to the study, which is worse than littering on the beach (8.9), disrespecting hotel staff (8.8) or leaving rubbish on public airport tables (7.5) was being rude to airline staff.

Behaving rudely towards airline employees was ranked the most annoying behaviour for travellers, with an average score of 9.1/10.

The survey asked more than 1000 people to rank certain behaviours on a scale of one to 10, depending on how annoying they were.

Unfortunately, there has been no shortage of such events, particularly during the worst of the pandemic years. During this time, reports of unruly passenger behaviour skyrocketed and some altercations lead to violent attacks towards crew members, emergency landings in random destinations and record-setting fines.

In the US, many of these were fuelled by tensions surrounding mask mandates, as after the mandate dropped, unruly passenger reports halved in one week.

Tightly packed between strangers in an upright position with nowhere to escape, it’s probably no surprise people were most likely to be the most annoyed on a plane compared to any other part of a trip. This was closely followed by the airport.

As for age, Boomers (70-plus years old) are the most easily riled up and, on average, scored experiences 6.9/10, while Gen Z-ers and Millennials scored things an average of 5.9.

On the other side of things, the behaviour that least annoyed travellers was having companions who took too many photos. This behaviour scored just 3.6/10.