The Agoda ‘Annoying Travel Habits’ research was conducted by independent market research firm, YouGov, between June 19th and 25th 2018. 10,384 respondents were interviewed online and are representative of those who have been on holiday at least once in the past year.
Those who participated in the study came from the UK (1,418), USA (597), Australia (837), Singapore (913), Malaysia (1,002), Philippines (1,011), Indonesia (1,063), Vietnam (999), Thailand (1,062) and China (1,482).
The research showed that noisy travellers (57%), travellers glued to their devices (47%), and those insensitive to cultural nuances (46%) topped the most annoying habits of fellow travellers according to Agoda’s global ‘Annoying Travel Habits’ survey.
Mass tour groups and selfie-takers, cited by 36% and 21% respectively, completed the top five most irritating habits.
Chinese travellers seemingly have the highest tolerance for selfie-takers, with only 12% 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%) citing holiday selfie-takers as annoying.
Insensitivity to local cultural nuances is more than twice as irritating for Singaporeans, (63%) Filipinos (61%) and Malaysians (60%) as it is for Chinese (21%) and Thai (27%) Travellers.
About half of British (54%) and two-fifths of American travellers (41%) are intolerant of this habit.
Almost half (47%) of the global respondents cited travellers spending too much time on their mobile devices as a grievance. Compared to travellers from other countries, the Vietnamese find those glued to their devices the most annoying (59%).
Thai travellers, on the other hand, have the most relaxed attitude (31%) towards constant device usage on holiday.
Americans are the only exception to this trend and on average spend less time on their devices when travelling solo (62%) than when they are with family (66 minutes) or friends (86 minutes).
Brits are the most engaged travellers when travelling together, limiting their screen time to just over an hour (63 minutes) a day; comparatively Thai travellers spend more than two hours a day (125 minutes) on the phone when they travel with friends or family.