THANKS to good deals, more people are now traveling the world, but with that comes irritations that can take the fun out of the whole experience. Today, Agoda, one of the fastest growing online travel agents (OTA), reveals what travelers think are the most annoying habits they see on their journeys.
Noisy travelers (57 percent), travelers glued to their devices (47 percent), and those insensitive to cultural nuances (46 percent) topped the most annoying habits of fellow travelers, according to Agoda’s global “Annoying Travel Habits” survey. Mass tour groups and selfie-takers, cited by 36 percent and 21 percent respectively, complete the top five irritants.
For Filipinos, the top three annoying travel habits are as follows: Insensitivity to cultural nuances (61 percent), noisy travelers (59 percent) and people glued to their devices and not paying attention to where they are going (52 percent).
Chinese travelers seemingly have the highest tolerance for selfie-takers, with only 12 percent of Chinese respondents irritated by selfie-takers compared to Australians, who are on the other end of the tolerance spectrum with nearly a third (31 percent) citing holiday selfie-takers as annoying. Insensitivity to local culture nuances is more than twice as irritating for Singaporeans (63 percent), Filipinos (61 percent) and Malaysians (60 percent) than it is for the Chinese (21 percent) and Thai (27 percent) travelers. About half of British (54 percent) and two-fifths of American travelers (41 percent) are intolerant of this habit.
Almost half (47 percent) of the global respondents cited travelers spending too much time on their mobile devices as a grievance. Compared to travelers from other countries, the Vietnamese find those glued to their devices the most annoying (59 percent). Thai travelers, on the other hand, have the most relaxed attitude (31 percent) towards constant device usage on holiday.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, solo travelers spend nearly two hours a day on their devices when on holiday (117 minutes)—which is 15 percent more time than when they are traveling with friends (100 minutes) and 26 percent more time than if they are with family (86 minutes). Americans are the only exception to this trend and on average spend less time on their devices when traveling solo (62 minutes) than when they are with family (66 minutes) or friends (86 minutes).
Brits are the most engaged travelers when traveling together, limiting their screen time to just over an hour (63 minutes) a day. Comparatively Thai travelers spend more than two hours a day (125 minutes) on the phone when they travel with friends or family. PR