Why do tourists behave badly on holiday?
Stories of travellers behaving badly seem to be on the rise. But why do people misbehave when they’re on holiday?
From knocking over ancient rock formations in Nevada to miming lewd acts with a statue in Italy, stories of tourists behaving badly on holiday seem to be on the rise, and destinations around the world are taking notice.
In the last few months, there have been protests against over tourism and “bad” tourist behaviour around the globe, and both issues seem to be coming under greater scrutiny. Websites and Instagram accounts like Tourons Of Yellowstone and Welcome to Florence serve as repositories of questionable traveller behaviour, and with each new documented instance, many may wonder: “What were they thinking?”
According to Javier Labourt, a licensed clinical psychotherapist and avid traveller, the answer is varied. “There are many factors that could influence this [kind of] behaviour,” he says. “There could be individual factors, there could be contextual factors [and] there could be group factors, if the person is travelling with a group. So, I think that the first question that we need to ask to ourselves is, okay, is this person someone that would do this type of behaviour when he or she is at home?”
What counts as bad tourist behaviour can run the gamut from something thoughtless, like blocking a walkway to get that perfect Instagram shot; to offensive behaviours, like posing nude in public; to dangerous ones, like approaching wild animals.
According to Dr Alana Dillette, Assistant Professor of Hospitality and Tourism Management at San Diego State University, some types of inappropriate tourist behaviour, such as trying to help an animal rejoin its herd at Yellowstone National Park, may come down to a general unawareness of social norms and what’s acceptable in different destinations.
“I think a lot of it is lack of knowledge and [the] understanding of your impacts on the place that you’re visiting,” Dillette explained. “I think so many people travel and they’re thinking about how it’s going to be an experience for them, but they don’t think about how their [actions are] impacting the place that they’re in, because they just don’t have the knowledge.”
Another classic form of bad tourist behaviour is what behaviourist and author of the book On Being Unreasonable, Dr Kirsty Sedgman, who teaches at the University of Bristol, refers to as “main character energy”.
[Tourism] has the power to lift people out of poverty, it has a power to connect people across cultures and religions and languages – Alana Dillette
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