Expedia survey rates the world’s worst tourists

by Abha Malpani on

The French, Indians, and the Chinese have been voted as the world’s worst tourists by a group of 4000 hoteliers, in a survey conducted by online travel search engine Expedia. On the other hand, the best tourists are 1) Japanese 2) British and Germans.

Yup, looks like the annoying and continuous photo taking of everything in sight by the Japanese, and the drunken stag parties of the British and the Germans do not lay room for complaint, thanks to their wonderful behavior, manners, generosity, willingness to integrate themselves into a new culture — criteria on which the nationalities were rated.

Interestingly enough, a similar survey was conducted by Expedia 6 years ago and it tagged the British, Danish and Irish as the worst. The British were voted as the “rudest, worst-behaved, most linguistically incompetent and least adventurous holiday makers.” Ouch. What’s for that drastic change from best to worst?

Anyway, I hate such generalizations because I think an entire race can’t be blamed for the misdoings of a bunch of people. Surveys like this are interesting insight, but nothing more.

Word for the Travel Wise (10/21/06)

by Adrienne Wilson on

If I had more time I swear I’d sit in a huge kitchen and learn how to cook all my favorite exotic Thai, Peruvian, Japanese, and Indian dishes. The problem is I just don’t have the time. I’m on the go A LOT and while some of my hotel rooms are conveniently equipped with a microwave and fridge, trying to make tikka masala or anything curry is not likely to go over well. Anyhow, my daydreams of being a master of the cooking arts lead us to this word which some of you may wish to request less of depending on the dish.

Today’s word is a Hindi word from India:

pyaaz – onion

There are several awesome resources online to learn Hindi for free and a fee. Wikitravel Phrasebook provides many useful phrases to remember for your journey. Let’s Learn Hindi is a colorful place to pick up the basics and some additional tools. Those interested in reading Sanskrit can click here and Pimsleur has great audio books. To purchase a Lonely Planet phrasebook for the road, click here to head to Amazon.

Past Hindi words: pankhaa, Ravivar, lajawab, paisa, limbu pani

Word for the Travel Wise (10/08/06)

by Adrienne Wilson on

Having recently purchased a small Lakota dictionary for beginner’s I thought I’d put it to use here on Gadling. Lakota won’t be a language you run around using on a daily basis even with the majority of speakers in the U.S. For the following word I please note the letter ‘n’ should be more like a ‘n’ with a ‘j’ hanging from the second line of the ‘n’. I don’t have the correct character key, but should you really try pronouncing this one, just beware of the way it appears here and how it should actually appear.

Today’s word is a Lakota word used in North America:

wawíhangya – destroyer

Lakota is spoken in the U.S. in areas which include North Dakota, South Dakota, parts of Nebraska, Minnesota, and Montana. It is also spoken by a few people in Canada and has a total range of 8,000-9,000 speakers in all of North America. Lakota is the largest of the three languages of the Sioux, of the Siouan family as noted in Wikipedia. Head over to their page for a quick read on lingo background info. One last interesting fact is that the language represents one of the largest Native American speech communities left in the United States.

Learning Lakota online will be a bit more challenging than Spanish, but can be done to a certain point. There is a Lakotiya Yahoo group which holds live online classes. You must be a member, but I believe registration is free and from there you can start learning pronunciation and grammar. The Saskatchewan Indian Cultural Center has a decent website which includes quotes form the elders, common terms & phrases (with audio), and a grammar guide. Lakhota.org offers off-line language products like this Speak Lakota Level 2 Textbook which are said to be the finest according to the site. If you’re in the northern plains area of the U.S. try seeking out a native speaker for some lessons, otherwise you can pick up this Everyday Lakota for beginner’s dictionary at the Crazy Horse Memorial or on Amazon.