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A new class of 'Ugly Indian' travelers
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Bill Radke: You've probably heard the term "Ugly Americans" to describe our countrymen who travel abroad and demonstrate behavior that some see as, you know, loud, obnoxious and insensitive to the host cultures. Well, as more and more Indians travel outside their borders, they're starting to get a bad rap as well. Raymond Thibodeaux reports from New Delhi.
Raymond Thibodeaux: A recent survey from the online travel agency Expedia had some bad news for Indian travelers: 4,500 surveyed hoteliers from around the world rated Indians as some of their worst customers -- loud, fussy and cheap.
Ritu Saigal, who manages a travel agency here in New Delhi, is unabashed:
Ritu Saigal: We kind of enjoy life full-sized, you know, king-sized. I'm not apologetic about the Indian customer being thrifty. Even I like a good bargain if I get it.
In India, it's normal for middle and upper-class people to have a cook, a driver, a nanny. She says that master-servant relationship is often carried abroad -- so travelers treat waiters, flight attendants and taxi drivers as underlings.
Saigal: It's not that they're trying to be rude or mean or anything. They just don't know a different way to be. So there again our role comes in, I think. We need to educate them.
She says the West also needs to familiarize itself with the habits of Indian travelers. She says Indians often complain to her that hotels rarely offer Bollywood movies, and that foreign restaurant workers often don't know that many Indians prefer to eat with their hands.
Azhar Usman is an Indian comedian based in Chicago. He says stereotyping of any kind isn't helpful. But then again:
Azhar Usman: Just as not all American tourists, you know, fit the stereotype of the Ugly American, we all know that there are some that do.
He says the bigger issue here is the rise of a class of Indians who can afford to travel abroad.
Usman: Folks are not necessarily getting acculturated into, you know, perhaps the best way to behave yourself. The very fact that we have a category now of the Indian traveler, it speaks volumes about how far India has come as a country.
With the global slowdown, India is one of the few countries still spending on travel. Again, Ritu Saigal from the travel agency:
Saigal: Can any one of us who are in this business can survive without the rich Indian traveler, ugly or beautiful, whatever?
And many tour companies from the U.S., Europe and the Middle East seem to agree. They've set up offices in cities like New Delhi and Mumbai.
In New Delhi, I'm Raymond Thibodeaux for Marketplace.
I cannot but agree with a lot being said on this forum. However, not many people may know that the Indian people among themselves are often very different from each other. You may find a sea change in the mannerisms of people even from neighboring states in India and one’s Idea of having fun can be and often is a nuisance to the other. I once went on a holiday to a supposedly quiet beach getaway near Mumbai in India to relax over a long weekend only to find out a few truck loads of people from a neighboring state visiting the place with all their cousins and nephews and their families and all had to stay at the same hotel and all had to have the bang off their bucks… and all had to get drunk before the state they came from had prohibition in place. Needless to say we checked out early next morning. I may be biased in my thinking but whenever I read about Indian travelers creating a scene over free liquor, my thoughts wander to the people from prohibition states of India.
Back here in Chicago, I have seen my first generation Indian friends and their visiting relatives behaving in a manner so different from their American neighbors. Some reasons are genuine, like someone pointed out, our cooking habits are different and our food does smell different. What is tempting smell to us can be disgusting to others and vice versa. Like I know of a friend’s devout religious vegetarian parents who became sick when they saw beef and other meat products being sold openly in the supermarket. The smell of cooking beef made me sick too in the initial days here. Eating with hands may look disgusting to some but for people from some parts of India, it is the best way they know. One in fact reasoned it out to me once saying that otherwise your hands don’t get the taste. So I suspect, they have taste buds in their fingers too. Tipping for service is sometimes discouraged in India. I have seen some hotels displaying at the cashiers desk that their employees get full salary so they may not be tipped. People looking for tips are often looked upon as pesky. However, that shall not be reason for not tipping in Europe or America as it’s an integrated part of culture here. I have often argued on this matter with my friends (mostly to no use) telling them that shelling out a couple of extra dollars will not make them poor and in fact win goodwill for themselves and their fellow countrymen but you know what, sometimes we do act cheap, mean and obnoxious. There is no excuse to that and my countrymen may not heed to any reason either. But things are changing at a dramatic pace in India and hopefully the new generation is better adapted to global trends then mine.
I work in a hotel, Indians are extremely demanding specially for free things,are extremely ungrateful not ever thanking people for going the extra mile for them.and if not given on their demands for free things they go and complain to Corporate the biggest complaints we had are always from Indian guests.
This is just crap. We have bakshish based on service and satisfaction; in the West, it's "Tips" and in the last 15 years, it's gone up from 10 to 15 to now 20% We Indians travel in groups and do things together. So 10 of us go to eat, the bill is $300, and we're supposed to tip the waitress $60? One who has been strutting around like an ostrich avoiding our table as much as possible? And if we don't, then we are cheap? If we see obvious differences in level of attention and service between our table and the next one and ask for more attention, we're fussy? We talk together, laugh, have a good time, we're loud? Italians do that, Germans do that (tell me about THAT) and they are having fun?
Our problem is we concern ourselves with such stories. We are who we are and we should act the way we feel comfortable. 1.2 billion people eat with hands. 0.4 billion eat with fork. I say change the damn 0.4 billion, not the 1.2 billion.
The hoteliers should be glad that they still have their jobs in an economy like this, because some countries are doing well and people are still traveling, otherwise they wouldn't be hopping to New Delhi to set up new offices. And anyways I bet you most of them (including the previous reviewer Stacy Ferguson) cannot differentiate Indians from Bangladeshis or Paskistanis, Sri Lankans or anyone from South east Asia, so why single out Indians ? Infact, if anything, Indians are considered overall to be very mild and warm people. Let's face it, there are good, bad and ugly travelers all over the world, let's not be so quick to judge any "ugly American or Indian" tourists.
I agree that it is silly demanding to fix a reading light but I wonder how Stacey Ferguson figured out that the couple were Indian. Many nationalities including some Central/South Americans look like Indians.
I feel any individual not behaving is related to that individual, litte if not nothing to do with country origin.
How ironic that I heard this report today, as I was a witness to an ugly Indian tourist this weekend. As we were slightly late in departing Las Vegas on a flight this weekend, the Indian couple in front of me complained to the flight attendant that their reading lights didn't work. The woman demanded someone come fix it. The flight attendant offered to reseat them, but they were insistent on staying in their seat, and having someone fix the light. (By the way, the flight time was to be just over 40 minutes to LA.) I'm so glad the airline was insistent on not having a maintenance technician fix it then and there, as it would have caused myself and many others to miss our connection. I just couldn't believe how unreasonable this couple was! Thanks for your report, it puts into perspective a possible reason why I witnessed this atypical form of "ugly air traveler."
