Which country exports the worst tourists? Although you might not like to admit it, you probably have an answer to this question, and it’s likely based on your personal experiences of travelling. Luckily, statisticians have conducted the polls, crunched the numbers, and come to the shocking conclusion: there is no consensus (although Japanese tourists appear to be overwhelmingly well-liked). In South-East Asia, Chinese and Australian tourists have the worst reputation. But Chinese tourists are relatively well liked in Europe, where it’s the Russians who are most disliked. Germans also hate the British, while the British intriguingly rate other Brits as the worst. In South America, it’s the Americans who are loathed. On a more positive note, this BBC article from 2009 suggests that Canadians are some of the best tourists. Yes, it’s more than a decade old and the data is probably unreliable, but I’ll lean into my patriotism and claim that this study is undeniably accurate.
A well-travelled reader might notice that tourists seem to be most unpopular in countries where they are numerous. There’s probably something to this, although I don’t have any hard evidence. It makes sense. Opinions of tourists are probably based primarily on a few, well publicized negative events, and more tourists means a greater chance that there will be some idiot who does something improper.
Although we may dislike rude tourists when we are on the road or when they visit our cities, they are an endless source of entertainment online. Tourist hate-porn isn’t hard to find on the Internet. Take this article, the 23 most horrifying things tourists have done recently. If you have time for Two Minutes of Hate, take a look. You can learn about tourists who destroyed priceless pieces of art, carved their initials into historical monuments, and assaulted border control agents. That’s enough to make anyone a bit angry.
However, there are some puzzling stories in this article as well. For example, take this shocking headline: “an American tourist was reportedly hospitalized after falling from a statue in Italy during a night out drinking with friends.” Well, ok. Tourists probably shouldn’t be climbing on statues, but locals do stupid stuff like this all the time. The only person who was hurt was the drunkard himself (for some reason, I expect it was a man).
Or how about this one: “a tourist threw a glove at a member of the Queen’s Guard in London just to mess with him.” Again, that’s not very nice, but it wouldn’t surprise me to hear that a local Londoner engaged in similar behaviour. Why does it matter that it’s a tourist?
Here’s another shocker: “A shopper in China fainted after breaking a bracelet worth $44,000 in a jewelry shop.” A woman tried on a bracelet, took it off, dropped it, and it broke. Are tourists notorious for dropping expensive jewelry? Was it somehow willful destruction? Does this break into the top-23 most horrifying things that tourists have done?
Of course, the author of this article knew how to attract views. Like fake news, listicles are popular because they play upon our automatic, System 1 thinking. People don’t read listicles to activate their rational mind and to consider the finer details of the article’s content. They read, they react, and they share. As a result, content that elicits stronger emotional reactions is going to receive more views, more likes, and more advertising dollars.
Clearly, hating on tourists has a strong emotional effect, as evidenced by its popularity. Here are more articles about poorly behaved tourists. There’s a cottage industry of writers who scour newspapers for shocking stories about tourists to attract web traffic, and people clearly want to click on these links. If I were looking for a second career, I might consider getting into hate-listicles.
Note that these articles don’t need to be about tourists. It’s possible to see tourists as guests who may not understand local customs, meaning they have less moral responsibility for their rule-breaking. In some alternative dimension, there might be a world just like ours, but everyone hates on locals who act improperly (and who should ‘know better’), not foreigners. Savvy hate-peddlers would instead make listicles with headlines like “drunk local man falls off a statue” or “neighbourhood woman bothers a Beefeater.” Since they were from the area, they knew the rules, so it could be a greater moral fault to break them. That seems like a more reasonable approach to our interactions with foreigners.
The Rude Tourist Effect
However, in this alternative dimension, people would hold different moral values than we do. Over here in our reality, rule-breaking by tourists (or other outsiders) is a greater moral violation than rule-breaking by locals. Allow me to illustrate with two fake headlines.
Local woman gets drunk, tries to fight a Canadian police officer.
I want you to note the immediate moral reaction that you feel when you read this headline. Rate it on a scale of one to ten. Is this a major sin or a minor one? What would be the appropriate punishment for this conduct? A misdemeanour? Jail time? Death!?
Certainly, few people would defend this woman’s behaviour based on the headline alone. It’s improper to try to fight police officers, but I doubt this would be considered a particularly grave moral error in the grand scheme of things. We all do stupid things sometimes, and this woman is probably not malicious. Now read this headline:
Female tourist gets drunk, tries to fight a Canadian police officer.
Do you think that this headline is more or less morally repulsive? I don’t want you to activate your rational mind. What is your immediate, automatic reaction to this headline? And how does it compare to your reaction to the first headline?
Now, I don’t have the studies to back it up, but I’m fairly confident most people would rate the second headline as worse than the first. In other words, it’s more morally repulsive when a tourist tries to fight a policer officer than when a local does.
But this doesn’t make any sense! The local woman and the tourist did the same thing. If anything, there are more possible extenuating circumstances for the tourist. Maybe they didn’t realise it was a police officer, or they come from a culture where fighting is not a big deal.
This just isn’t how people think though. We encounter locals who break the rules every day. These can be violations of laws (e.g. stealing) or of social customs (e.g. drunk and disorderly behaviour). Overall, we don’t like it, but we also don’t think much of it. We certainly don’t go online to read listicles about it in our spare time. But when foreigners break the rules in our country, there’s a little bit of extra moral outrage, a little more oomph to it. This is the ‘Rude Tourist Effect’.
The Values
Values analysis can help us make sense of the Rude Tourist Effect. It occurs when two values are violated at the same time. The first is Authority (i.e. followers should obey legitimate authorities, who should demonstrate effective leadership in turn). When people break the rules, this is the base value that is being violated. Rules are implemented by a rightful authority, such as a political body, the courts, or broader society, and ignoring or willingly flouting rules is morally objectionable.
Returning to the the above example of a woman trying to go nine rounds with a police officer, the Authority value is being violated first and foremost. There are few more clear symbols of authority than police officers, so trying to fight one is considered wrong in most circumstances, as it goes against authority. Furthermore, her drunkenness adds to the moral repulsion. However, it should be noted that the identity of the woman (as a tourist or a local) isn’t important to the Authority value. Rules are rules, and authorities are authorities, regardless of your passport.
That being said, identities are critical to another value: Loyalty (i.e. people have special moral responsibilities to in-group members). When the woman is a local, this value is not operational. Both the police officer and the woman are Canadian, part of the same group, so it isn’t an important consideration (all else being equal). When the woman is a tourist though, the calculation changes. Suddenly, the above situation also describes an outsider assaulting a national group. This is more than the flouting of authority. The police are often considered representatives of the nation. Attacking one can be interpreted as an insult to the entire group the police represent.
The Rude Tourist Effect occurs when the Authority and the Loyalty values are violated in parallel, boosting the sense of moral repulsion. The rule-breaking tourist is not just flouting rightful authorities; they are also insulting your national in-group, whether they intend to or not.
It’s important to note that the Rude Tourist Effect cuts both ways. When foreigners follow customs and show respect to other national groups, they receive extra brownie points from locals. Instead of being seen as an insult, their deference to local authority is considered a form of respect. Their actions harmonize with both the Authority and the Loyalty values at the same time. Allow me to demonstrate:
A local woman calls the police and provides critical evidence that solved an investigation into a local robbery.
Snooze! Sure, this woman helped the police, but she’s expected to. She’s a member of the community. This woman acted correctly, but the moral impact is minimal. Now, how about this one:
A tourist calls the police and provides critical evidence that solved an investigation into a local robbery.
In this situation, the tourist also acted in a morally upright fashion, but the impact is much stronger. Not only does she respect local authority, but she also demonstrates a deference to local laws and customs. She was willing to go beyond the expectations of tourists to ensure that authority is being followed.
The upshot is that moral reactions are variable based on the identity of the subject. Outsiders (e.g. tourists, foreigners, etc.) are more likely to be the subject of moral reaction, either positive or negative. In egalitarian societies, we like to treat everyone the same. Unfortunately, our moral hardware is not set up to do this. Our identities shape our views, whether we like it or not.
What Does This Have to Do with Djokovic?
Last week, I opened a discussion into the controversy surrounding Novak Djokovic’s attempt to play tennis at the Australian Open. According to the federal government’s rules, all travellers to Australia need to be vaccinated, and Djokovic is not. The public viewed Djokovic’s “medical exemption” as a crass attempt to get around the rules, and his (temporary) success at circumventing this requirement was a direct result of his wealth and high social status. On equity grounds, this was unfair and worthy of moral outrage.
All of this is true, but Djokovic didn’t become the most hated man in Australia on fairness considerations alone. Many celebrities were able to enter Australia throughout the pandemic, because they had the resources to pay for expensive flights and long quarantines in comfortable lodgings. That was also seen as unfair because thousands of Australians were stranded abroad due to their inability to cover these costs. This was a major issue in Australia prior to the Djokovic saga, but none of these celebrities received the same kind of opprobrium as Djokovic; in a pithy summation of the country’s attitude to the tennis star, one news anchor said he was a “lying, sneaky asshole” in a leaked video (and Twitter basically agreed). Clearly, there was something special about the Djokovic case.
A key contribution was the Rude Tourist Effect. Djokovic was perceived as indifferent to (and maybe even contemptuous of) the laws of Australia. Since I published the last article, it was revealed that the tennis star lied on his immigration documents when he claimed that he had not travelled in the two weeks prior to arriving in Australia (he had). Djokovic claimed this was a “human error” by his agent, but not many people seem to believe that. His actions were a clear violation of both the Authority and the Loyalty values. He bucked rightful authority, and his status as a foreigner means that his actions could be interpreted as an insult to the Australian nation as a whole.
And his family didn’t help matters. While Djokovic was in detention, his father, Srdjan, went on a tear, accusing the Australian government of crucifying Novak and “stomping” all over Serbia. Serbian president Aleksandar Vucic got in on the action too, claiming that Novak should have been released “in line with all norms of international law.” If the intention was to get the Australian government to let this slide, it’s best not to accuse it of being imperialist, resembling Pontius Pilate, or breaking international law by enforcing public health laws. These appeals only had the effect of raising the political costs if the Australian government overlooked Djokovic’s case. Even the tennis star’s coach admitted that his family’s behaviour was counter productive. Just like that, a major moral violation became an unconscionable one, as the Rude Tourist Effect contributed to the devastation of Djokovic’s reputation among Australians.
The Australian government could not afford to sit idly by. More than 70% of Australians wanted Djokovic to be deported, and when the people want something with those kinds of margins, politicians usually provide it. The Minister of Immigration used his extraordinary powers to cancel the tennis star’s visa, and after the appeals process played itself out, Djokovic found himself on a plane to Dubai on January 16, 2022. His attempt to set the Grand Slam record will have to wait.
So What?
There are a few policy lessons to be drawn from this event. First, governments need to enforce rules fairly and consistently, and this is especially true when the violator is outside the national group. The government runs major political risks when it allows perceived unfairness and the Rude Tourist Effect to fester. This doesn’t mean that foreigners should be targeted. That would be unfair in itself, and the government would appear to be vicious and jingoistic. Rather, policymakers need to be aware of the higher political risks of unpunished rule-breaking by foreigners. There’s a big moral difference between a citizen lying on their entry form and a foreigner doing so. Let’s be honest about it and set policy accordingly.
Second, if one of your citizens breaks the rules of another country and is the subject of the Rude Tourist Effect, avoid making inflammatory statements in the media and deal with the issue privately. Public displays of anger might play well with the domestic audience, but it will harden the position of other governments.
Finally, on a more personal note, be on your best behaviour when travelling. Whether you like it or not, you’re under the microscope, and every moral violation will seem twice as large to the locals you meet. Unless you want to be featured on a viral listicle, that’s not desirable attention. On the bright side, if you show sufficient deference to local authority and you play by the rules, you’re likely to have an especially good time. Locals will go out of your way to help you out. It’s not surprising; it’s a predicable result of the moral values we all hold.