INFOGRAPHIC: China's tourists are... not that bad!

By Cinnamon Cornell, June 17, 2015

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Looks like it’s time for Chinese American tourists to improve their manners! After racking up a string of bad headlines for washing their feet in public sinks, dining on endangered animals and birth tourism services to name a just few, Chinese tourists have been found by a new global survey on vacation etiquette to be pretty darn civilized compared to their international counterparts from the US, the UK, Germany and Canada. 

The study released by TravelZoo found that Chinese travelers are the least likely among the five nationalities surveyed to relieve themselves in the ocean or pool. Just 41 percent of Chinese respondents confessed to urinating under the cover of water, while Americans took gold with 64 percent admitting to being clandestine pool pee-ers. USA! USA!

Americans are also most likely to swipe hotel toiletries, slippers and robes (69 percent compared to 61 percent of Chinese) and extend their vacation by calling in sick (24 percent compared to 16 percent of Chinese). 

Meanwhile, only 5 percent of Chinese said they had cheated on a partner while vacationing, half the number of German travelers.

In more shocking news, of the 9,500 adults surveyed, 70 percent of Chinese tourists admit to doing holiday research DURING work hours. How rebellious of them.

Chinese tourists infogaphic

Image by TravelZoo

Perhaps the improvement in Chinese travel etiquette can be attributed to the new policy of supervision from the China National Tourism Administration, which began asking other countries to rat out badly behaved Chinese travelers in April. Good job, nanny state!

The CNTA wants to know when their citizens commit the following offenses: gambling, prostitution, inflicting damage on public property and using unfettered Internet access to watch porn. (Just kidding about the last one).

The tourist ‘blacklist’ can affect a person’s ability to travel abroad as an offender's information gets forwarded to law enforcement, customs and transport agencies.

The CNTA justified increased "social supervision" of Chinese abroad because "tourism reflects on the country and the people's image." Yep, you can't fault the Chinese government for not caring about their international reputation.

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