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What? >> Loud, rude, traveling in enormous packs,buying everything in sight, and completely ignoring local customs.That’s what the Europeans said about the American tourists in the 1950s.Sound familiar? Chinese tourism did 150 million international trips in 2024 and, spent over 250 billion dollars doing it. Everyone wants their money, but nobody, wants their manners. And look, I get it. When I’m at Disneyland in Hong Kong with, my kids and a tour bus pulls up, I’m teaching my 5-year-old how to spread out, and box out like we’re in a basketball game because we’ve been cut so many, times when we just let down our guard. It just sucks the relaxation out of, what’s supposed to be a fun day at the park. But, the hate isn’t new and it, isn’t permanent. I’m John and I’ve spent weeks digging into tourism data and, online threads to understand the question of Chinese tourists. The answer, isn’t rudeness or culture, it’s three systems colliding. And there’s one.
question that unlocks the whole pattern. How did 5 million travelers become 150, million [music] in just a few decades? But first, what are people actually, angry about?In 2024, the Chengdu Panda Base in China issued 12 lifetime bans to visitors for, touching, poking, or throwing objects at the pandas. So, you know, this behavior, isn’t just international. Internationally, we’ve seen a Thai, temple close a bathroom after a Chinese tourist defaced it.>> WHEN I opened the toilet door, oh my god, it was dirty all around.>> In Egypt, a teenager got famous for carving names into ancient monuments. In, Malaysia, a woman threw hot coffee at a barista after a service dispute and the, video went viral globally. And line-cutting reports at Seoul’s Incheon, Airport show up across Korean social media. But, here’s the thing. These, stories represent a fraction of the actual picture. Travel sentiment data, from major tourism destinations show that the majority of interactions with.
Chinese travelers are rated positively, not just acceptable. They’re actually, actively positive. In other words, there’s some real data saying the, opposite is true. So, what’s going on? How can both be true? The math actually, explains a lot of it, and we’ll break down exactly how much later. But, the, short version is this. When you’re the largest outbound tourism source on the, planet, your outliers don’t just exist. [music] They’re everywhere, and they get, amplified on social media. The outliers become the story. [music], But, scale alone doesn’t explain the behavior. For that, we need to, understand something that most coverage completely ignores. China compressed 150, years of travel evolution into 30, and that compression created a generation, with capital, but not context.In the early 1990s, Chinese citizens took roughly 4 to 5 million, international trips per year. By 2024, that number grew nearly 30 times more in, 30 years. To understand why this matters, you need context from the West.
Travel culture in Europe and North America evolved over more than a, century. It started with the Grand Tour of the 1700s, followed by Thomas Cook’s, organized tourism in the 1800s, and then post-World War II commercial flights, really helped tourism blow up. And multiple generations passed down, unwritten knowledge about how to behave in foreign spaces.Things like airport etiquette, restaurant behavior, and hotel norms. It, was a slow transmission of travel literacy. China compressed that entire, arc into roughly one generation. Most Chinese international travelers today, are the first in their family to leave the country. There’s no inherited, playbook. No one taught them airport etiquette [music] or restaurant norms.You’re learning everything from scratch, in real time, in public, and under, scrutiny. A wealthy American in 1955 had three generations of international, travel experience baked into their family background, and they likely even.
traveled as children. A wealthy Chinese person in 2005 often had none. And so, they leaned into tour groups, but not entirely by choice. Until about 2010,individual tourist visas were not an option for most Chinese citizens going, abroad. The default became big organized groups, 30 or 40 people on fixed routes,and for years that was the only real option. And these groups became the, dominant travel format for practical reasons beyond just visa requirements.They solved for visa logistics and unfamiliar systems. A group of 30 or 40, people handled collectively is easier than 30 or 40 individuals figuring, things out alone. But groups had trade-offs. A tour bus moves differently, than a solo backpacker. 40 people coordinating in a crowded museum creates, visibility, and visibility creates perception. And how these tours made, money created their own problems. A lot of these discount tours to Europe are, cheaper than one night in a mid-level Paris hotel. So the press works through.
wholesale, vendor commissions, and min-maxing to the limit. A Chinese tour, guide friend of mine in Paris walked me through how a typical tour runs. You’re, up before dawn to scarf down breakfast, then onto a bus. You get a rushed stop, at the Eiffel Tower and 2 hours at the Louvre. And if you’ve ever been there,you know that’s impossible. Then comes a 6-hour bus ride to a mid-Bordeaux winery, with tourist gift shop traps along the way. You finish with a dinner at a, Chinese restaurant and nap on the long ride back to prep for Champs-Élysées, shopping spree the next day. And the tour guides work on commission from, those shops. So they’re clearly incentivized to milk the tour groups.They hurry the group past the real sites, fib about museum hours, and, improvise history to max out shopping time. So, the format itself herds people, into a stampede because losing the group in a city where you can’t read the signs, is frightening. They press forward and skip the line because the bus pulls out.
on schedule with or without them. And from the outside, that looks rude, but, from the inside, they’re on survival mode. And tour operators generally, provide logistics, but not cultural education. The trip was about getting, you there and back, not about teaching you the unwritten rules of a country.>> When visiting any country overseas, there are five phrases [music] that you, must learn. >> The first wave of mass Chinese tourism, hit global destinations with no playbook. And the behaviors that looked, rude to Westerners often made perfect sense back home. So, let’s talk about, what back home actually looks like, starting with stuff that generates the, most viral outrage. And look, I’m going to be talking about the uncomfortable, stuff because I’m not being honest if I skip them.Here’s the thing. The Chinese cultural operating system is unique. Let’s start, with spitting. In much of rural China, clearing your throat and spitting was, just normal. Think about the environmental context. You got cold.
winters, you got cold dust, [music] heavy pollution, yellow dust up north,and cigarette smoke pretty much everywhere. Spitting isn’t always, considered gross. It’s actually considered healthy. You just need to get, that stuff out of your lungs. And government’s been running public, campaigns against it for decades. But when something’s been normalized across, generations, policy and science can’t change people overnight. Then,>> [music] >> there’s the bathroom situation. Most, Westerners don’t realize this, but public sanitation infrastructure in, rural China was basically non-existent until recently. In those areas, kids, used whatever was available: fields, alleys, and buckets. Even today, plenty, of public toilets in smaller Chinese cities are just holes in the ground with, no toilet paper or soap. >> One of my biggest fears being out in, China is what is the next bathroom going to be like? I hoard so many napkins.>> And yes, I confirmed this when I went on tours in China and I had to bring my own.
toilet paper. Now, picture those same people landing in New York or Paris, where the restrooms are cleaner than some restaurants back home. They can’t, read the signs, they don’t know where the facilities are, and so they default, to what they’ve always done. And the toddler thing, I’ve seen this one, generate the most outrage. Back in the motherland, small kids wear open-back, pants instead of diapers, and when nature calls, an adult dangles them over, a gutter or onto a tree. Norbert Elias called this the civilizing process.Habits like these get wired in early and they take generations to fade. So, grown, parents still do it auto magically even on an exhibit floor.And in fact, before the Chinese tourist went abroad, they first went to Hong, Kong. And at that time, this was a major sticking point for the city. And Hong, Kong’s notorious for not having public washrooms at the time. So, a lot of, kiddos just went on the streets to the shock of everyone around. Now, I’m not.
saying this kind of thing is acceptable in Paris. I’m saying these aren’t, choices made out of disrespect. They’re defaults programmed by completely, different infrastructure reality. And this next one catches almost everyone, off guard. A no food sign at a park doesn’t register because in China, signs, are everywhere precisely because people ignore them. No spitting, no cutting, no, honking. You don’t see no spitting signs in London because people already don’t, spit. But in China, people have built up an immunity to signs. So, when abroad, a, sign you can’t even read is as soft as Charmin.Personal space is calibrated differently, too. In dense Chinese, cities, Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, the functional personal space bubble is, much smaller than Western norms. Some researchers have estimated it to be 18, inches in China versus 36 inches in the West. When tourists are pushing up to, you, they may literally not feel like they’re in your bubble.
In a noise meter, there’s a literal term for it called renao, which literally, means hot and loud, but it stands for good and rambunctious energy. Lively, conversations in Chinese restaurants means everyone’s having a good time. But, when this volume calibration travels to a quiet Paris cafe or a Tokyo ramen, shop, the mismatch is immediate because they bring literal hot and loud INTO THE, SPACE.SPEAKING OF TOKYO’S RAMEN SHOPS, you can learn more about Japan’s love-hate, relationship with tourism here. And then there’s the photo obsession.This one confused me like crazy until I understood what these photos actually, mean in Chinese social dynamics. Sure, everyone takes photos and selfies, but, the weird thing for me is that Chinese tourists always add an elegant pose that, is completely unnatural.For these travelers, the photo is the trip. Back home, everybody’s keeping, score. Your cousin Timmy posted Bali. Your uncle won’t shut up about Tokyo. A.
shot with the Mona Lisa will say that you’re a man of culture. You can afford, to see the world. That photo’s your scoreboard. And that’s why you see, tourists spending half an hour getting the perfect shot with the ridiculous, pose while blocking foot traffic. That’s why some will climb barriers, ignore, rope stanchions, and risk damaging ancient sites. Because if you miss the, shot, you’ve done nothing for the scoreboard. So our tour guide’s, five-star review comes down to whether everyone got their WeChat worthy flex.The whole day bends around that single deliverable. And of course, the tour’s, got to get their WeChat shot, too. Hence the obnoxious matching group outfits and, flags. Chinese tourists also have a, fundamentally different understanding of what customer behavior means. In China’s, rapidly modernizing service industry, assertive customer behavior signals, power and status. That means being direct about problems, speaking loudly, to get attention, and expecting immediate response. These kinds of.
behaviors are the markers of someone who matters. Customer assertiveness, demonstrates that you have the economic weight to demand service. But, internationally, this same behavior reads as rude, entitled Karen behavior.>> Let me ask you something. How intelligent do you have to be to, take a food order? >> So, the signals are completely flipped.Then there’s mianzi, or face. When confrontation happens in public,face-saving dynamics can push toward escalation. The Malaysian coffee, incident started as a service dispute, but it escalated after public, confrontation after the barista and the customer were both locked into a visible, social conflict with everyone around watching. Now, throwing coffee at, someone is wrong, but understanding why conflict escalates differently in, different cultural contexts is the difference between a stereotype and an, explanation. At the end of the day, a lot of this is different operating, systems crashing into each other with no translator installed, and that’s exactly.
what’s starting to change.The third force is pure math, and it’s both the reason the stereotype feels so, real and the reason it’s already starting to break down. Remember that, 150 million scale? If just one in 10,000 of those travelers were troublemakers,approximately one bad apple in about 10 high schools, that would still mean, 15,000 troublemakers getting their shenanigans put on blast on the, internet. Meanwhile, the 150 million respectful visits go completely, unreported. Nobody posts, “Look at all these Chinese tourists lining up, patiently and saying, ‘Thank you.’” because that’s not a story. The result, is the rude tourist stereotype that doesn’t match the aggregate data, but, feels true because the evidence is everywhere you look. And this is where, the story usually ends. Viral videos reinforcing stereotypes. Rinse and, repeat. Beijing knows it’s bad abroad and treats, it as a national image problem. And they’ve responded in a way no country.
has. They tried to legislate manners. Way back in 2013, the government, published a 64-page guide to civilized tourism and the specifics tell you, everything. Don’t pick your nose in public. Don’t steal life jackets from, airplanes. Don’t force white people to take photos with you. Flush the toilet, after use. Don’t leave footprints on toilet seats. And for those who didn’t, get that last one, it’s because most people in China use squat toilets and, don’t know how to use a western sitting one. These were mandates, not, suggestions. The state was basically publishing a behavior manual. But advice, wasn’t enough. So they built a system with teeth. A tourist blacklist tracks, citizens who behave badly abroad. A fight with airport staff? Blacklisted.Vandalize a monument? Blacklisted. Open an emergency exit on a plane because, you’re impatient? Blacklisted. If you get on that list, you can lose your, ability to book flights, take high-speed trains, and even get certain jobs. Your.
behavior in Rome will haunt your life back in Beijing. And this is kind of, related to the Chinese credit system. So if you want a deep dive on that, please, like and sub so that you’ll see it when the video drops. Citizens became legally, required to act in ways that preserve national dignity while abroad. And for, all intents and purposes, this public shaming component seems to work. The, teenager who carved his name into that Egyptian temple became a national pariah, overnight. And his family faced enormous social consequences. The incident, embarrassed China. And the whole system made sure the country knew about it. No, other government tells its citizens how to behave at buffets or reminds them to, flush. But China looked at the soft power damage and decided, “We’re going, to engineer a way out of this.” And the problem is the incidents are still, happening. But there are too many travelers and their habits are locked.And social media is too fast. Change takes years and millions of passports.
are issued every month. But something is shifting. Gen Z overwhelmingly prefers, FIT, free independent travel, over the group tours that defined the first wave.Nearly two out of three young travelers now book independently. No tour bus,flags, or packaged itinerary. And they’re going to different places.Search interest for Uzbekistan more than doubled. Azerbaijan, Georgia, Central, Asian destinations the tour group era barely touched. The opposite of the, Eiffel Tower selfie circuit. The younger ones are digital natives. They do TikTok, dances and root for Lakers and Rockets. My Chinese grad school friends find the, tourist stereotype so cringe that when they hear Mandarin abroad, they’ll, answer in English. >> Nǐ hǎo, B.>> And that’s the answer to the earlier question. How can both be true? The, stereotype is based on patterns from a decade ago, the first [music] wave, the, tour groups, the highest friction moments. But that wave is receding. And.
the positive ratings in the data is the current reality the stereotype hasn’t, caught up to. But the reputation lag creates a paradox. The destinations, complaining loudest about Chinese tourist behavior are also the ones, competing hardest to attract them.>> [snorts], >> Now, remember those American tourists from the 1950s? That wasn’t just a, YouTube hook. It’s the actual pattern.Everything I’ve described, the friction, the stereotypes, the eventual, adaptation, has happened before, multiple times, with different, countries. In the 19th century, British tourists with new industrial wealth, flooded continental Europe. And local populations mocked them as uncultured, nouveau riche. Same pattern, different century. From the ’50s to the ’80s,there was the ugly American tourist, loud, culturally insensitive, throwing, money around without understanding local norms. And that’s what I saw when I, stayed at Hong Kong Stanley, where my relatives ran a tourist gift shop. It’s.
literally the same complaints for a different country. Then the Japanese, tourists in the ’80s and ’90s were known to be camera-clicking, group-traveling,and flag-following people who bought luxury goods in bulk. The stereotype was, everywhere, and it faded as Japanese travel culture matured over two, generations. The pattern is universal. Wealth leads to mass travel, mass travel, leads to cultural friction, and cultural friction leads to stereotypes.Stereotypes that fade as people [music] figure out travel etiquette over a, couple of generations. China is currently following the exact same, curve, but here’s what makes China’s version different from every country, that came before. And the numbers tell you why. Chinese tourism contributed, significantly to global economic impact in 2024. Domestically, the sector, supported 82 million jobs in China alone, roughly Germany’s entire, population hired in one industry. For destination countries, Chinese tourist.
spendings pay for hotels, restaurants, and retail. Countries like Australia,France, Thailand, Japan, and Korea’s tourism recovery over the past two years, tracks directly with Chinese visitor volume returning post-COVID. policy, tells a story. More than 50 countries have introduced visa-free access for, Chinese tourists since 2023. But here’s what destination countries won’t say, publicly. Chinese tourism is beyond an industry, it’s a strategic lever.Beijing can turn the tap on and off depending on diplomatic relations, and, destination economies feel it immediately. Japan is the clearest, example. Ginza’s luxury retail runs on Chinese spending. But when tensions, flare for whatever reason, the numbers drop overnight cuz China will shut it.Group tour approvals slow down, anti-Japanese social media speed up,charter flights get rescheduled. China lets its money do the talking. The, playbook repeated with South Korea during the THAAD dispute, with the.
Philippines over South China Sea claims, tourism as a leverage. And it works both, ways. When Chinese tourists feel unwelcome or unsafe somewhere, whether, it’s real or perceived, they redirect. Thailand’s seen this.A few high-profile incidents with some viral videos of mistreatment and, bookings collapse. The market punishes destinations that don’t manage the, relationship carefully. So, when we talk about Chinese tourists, it also means, geopolitical forces. Their presence brings revenue, their absence brings, recession. The customer flow is both carrot and stick. And no government has, figured out how to take the money without taking the friction. But,there’s a bigger question underneath all of this. [music] Is global tourist norms, just Western tourist norms that everyone else is expected to follow? Who decided, what polite looked like? And who had to learn rules they never wrote? I’m not, saying the friction isn’t real. What I’m saying is this, the rude Chinese tourist.
story is the wrong frame. The frame that actually explains the pattern is the, universal first generation traveler cycle, one every wealthy country has, gone through. The West did this too, it just forgot. And if the pattern holds,there’s a question worth asking, who’s next? The obvious candidate is India.It’s got all the same specs that China had, a huge population, a fast-growing, middle class, and an economy on track to be the third biggest in the world by, 2035. And hundreds of millions have never gone, abroad. So, we’ll run this exact same story again in a decade, just with a, different flag on screen. In Canada, we’re already seeing this. Each new wave, will be missing the same manners that only generations can teach. At the start, of this video, I described tourists who were loud, rude, traveling in packs, and, ignoring local customs. You probably assumed I was talking about Chinese, tourists. I was talking about the Americans in the 1950s. And 60 years.
from now, someone will make this exact [music] video about a country none of us, are thinking about. But, yeah, when I visit Hong Kong, I’ll still be bossing, out at Disneyland with my kids. Some things, >> [music] >> just don’t change that fast. If you, liked this video, you’ll like this one. And if you made it this far, please like, and sub.
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