Who are the world’s happy and grumpy tourists? A data analysis of 3.5 million hotel reviews in subset groups from over 70 countries provided interesting insights on the travel sentiments of different nationalities.
Russia, Serbia and Lebanon top the world’s happiest travellers. The grumpiest tourists came from Spain, Ireland and Iceland.
RewardExpert, a personal finance and miles/points travel site, used 3.5 million reviews in subset groups for 13,410 hotels in 70 countries, including reviewers from 83 countries to compile the recent study on tourist sentiments.
Aussies versus Americans and Canadians
Australia ranked fourth on the top ten countries of happiest travellers after people from Russia, Serbia and Lebanon. Americans came in at ninth spot and Canadians at 22nd.
Australians wrote 164,137 reviews of which, 44.64% gave reviews with five-star ratings while another 35.08 percent gave four stars. The studies say combining the two data suggests that “four out of every five Australian tourists are happy, while less than one in ten are either ill-tempered grumps or just having some bad luck, a bad day, or a legitimately bad stay”.
Americans wrote 459,188 reviews. Of the overall reviews, 48.67 percent gave five-star ratings. Canadians who gave five-star ratings consisted of 41.9 percent of the total 90,731 reviews.
The results may reflect the cultural mindset of the different nationalities. Aussies tend to be care-free people and handle mishaps in stride. Americans are inclined to be vocal and jovial on their travels, mirroring their sentiments, while Canadians are more conservative in their review approach.
Home Countries of Happiest Travellers
1. Russia
2. Serbia
3. Lebanon
4. Australia
5. Belarus
6. Israel
7. Georgia
8. Jordan
9. United States
10. Columbia
Who are the Grumpy Tourists?
Grumpy travellers are stingy when it comes to five-star ratings. The top three are Spanish, Irish and Icelandic people.
“Spaniards abroad are impressively ornery: not only are they fourth most likely to leave one and two-star reviews (11.73 percent), they are the fifth least likely to leave a five-star review,” quoted RewardExpert report.
It added that Irish people are the most likely to leave one and two-star reviews of hotels abroad with 11.97 percent of 53,429 reviews being one or two stars.
Icelandic travelers wrote grumpy reviews at a rate higher than tourists from all but six other countries . That amounted to 11.13 percent of all Icelandic reviews, cited RewardExpert.
Related: Travel Checklist: Essential Things to Do Before Your Trip
Home Countries of Crankiest Travellers
1. Spain
2. Ireland
3. Iceland
4. Italy
5. Bulgaria
6. Zimbabwe
7. Denmark
8. Turkey
9. Iran
10. Lithuania
Source: RewardExpert International Grumpy Data
“To determine our ranking, the data set of nearly 3.5 million hotel reviews was divided into subsets according to the number of stars, on a one- to five-star scale,” says RewardExpert co-founder Vlad Tyschuk.
“The subset of one or two-star reviews indicated ‘grumpiness,’ whereas the subset of reviews with five-star ratings measured raw ‘happiness.’ An average was calculated of these two, as a percentage of all reviews by visitors from each country of origin, in order to rank them on a scale from grumpy to happy.”
