Portrait of the Chinese Tourist

Last month the World Tourism Organization reported that the number of Chinese tourists is growing at a record pace. An estimated 100 million of them will be traveling abroad by 2020. Impressive numbers, to be sure. But what are their travel habits? Wayne Arnold of the New York Times writes that the unflattering stereotypes emerging about Chinese travelers are part of a soundtrack we’ve all heard before.

China’s rapid economic growth has fostered a tourist boom among the mainland Chinese, with Southeast Asia the favorite destination, at least for now. The surge in package tour groups from China, an important source of income for the region, is also giving rise to an unflattering stereotype: the loud, rude and culturally naïve Chinese tourist.

Sound familiar? The tide of travelers from China mirrors the emergence of virtually every group of overseas tourists since the Romans, from Britons behaving badly in the Victorian era and ugly Americans in postwar Europe to the snapshot-happy Japanese of the 1980’s.

So it is not much of a surprise that tourists from mainland China, often going abroad for the first time, are leaving similar complaints in their wake.

But China is also manufacturing its own twist on the age-old tale, as became apparent in July when a group of more than 300 from China took umbrage at illustrations of a pig’s face on their check-in vouchers at a casino resort in predominantly Muslim Malaysia.

Although the resort said the drawings were meant only to distinguish their Chinese guests from Muslims, who cannot eat pork (or gamble), the Chinese demonstrated their pique by staging a sit-in in the hotel lobby and belting out their national anthem. It took 40 police officers with dogs to clear them out.

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