Countries With The Grumpiest Travelers

It's human nature to form opinions about the nature and disposition of tourists according to where they call home. It may not be nice, ethically, but it happens all the time. RewardExpert analyzed 3.5 million hotel reviews from more than 70 countries, including reviewers from 83 countries, to determine from where the world's grumpiest and happiest travelers hail. Hotel review data was divided into subsets according to the number of stars, on a one- to five-star scale, with the 955,754 reviews with one or two-star reviews indicating pure "grumpiness."

Another Eastern European exception is the little nation of Lithuania. Out of 1,320 reviews, 139, or 10.53 percent, bore a rating of one or two stars. The phenomenon extends to a general reluctance to give out four-star reviews, even as five-star reviews occurred with middling frequency.

Iranian tourists do appear to be rather bad-tempered. Out of a total of 1,326 reviews, 125 were accompanied by a one- or two-star rating, or 11.39 percent grumpy. Iranian tourists were also tenth least likely to leave five-star reviews of their lodgings.

In many ways, Turkey is unique for its position straddling the Bosphorus straits, which divides Europe from Asia. And it appears that Turkish tourists have two continents worth of grumpiness. Citizens of Turkey traveling abroad were seventh most likely to leave negative reviews of their accommodations, with 11.03% of 9,618 reviews accompanied by ratings of one or two stars. Data shows that visitors to Turkey were almost as grumpy, as well.

It would seem that Danes don't have to be a philosophers to experience significantly elevated levels of angst. Out of 16,512 hotel reviews authored by Danish tourists, a full 1,800 rated their hotel as one or two stars. Danes were second most likely to leave a middling three stars, while five-star reviews were rarer than a sunny day in Copenhagen.

There weren't very many reviews from tourists from Zimbabwe. In fact, had there been sixty fewer reviews by Zimbabweans, the country would have been excluded from the analysis. That being said, Zimbabwean tourists are an impressively grumpy bunch. Out of a total of 1,059 reviews, 125 were accompanied by a rating of one or two stars.

While natives of Eastern European nations generally ranked low in grumpiness and high in their willingness to give a glowing review, Bulgarians were a notable exception. A total of 252 out of 2,360 reviews left by Bulgarians traveling abroad were accompanied by a one or two-star rating. To their credit, Bulgarians were also the tenth most likely to leave five-star reviews, but this was insufficient to keep Bulgaria out of the ten countries with the most grumpy international tourists.

Like Spain, Italian tourism leans heavily on a reputation for a slower, more relaxed pace of life. Tourists from Italy are another story entirely. 11.17 percent of reviews written by Italian travelers rated their lodgings one or two stars, and Italians are also the fourth least likely to leave five-star reviews, which make up 29.18 percent of 215,438 reviews. Italians also ranked highly on three- and four-star reviews (11th and 8th places), suggesting a high degree of stinginess—or high standards—when it comes to handing out high reviews.

One would have to live under a rock (outside of Iceland) to not know that Iceland has been a hot tourist destination in recent years. But the disposition of Icelandic tourists is less well known. And it's about as sunny as Iceland is: tourists from Iceland write grumpy reviews at a rate higher than tourists from all but six other countries, which make up 11.13 percent of all reviews from natives of the island country.

Tourists hailing from the Emerald Isle are the most likely to leave one and two-star reviews of hotels abroad, taking second place on our grumpiest tourists list with 11.97 percent of 53,429 reviews being one or two stars. Irish tourists compensate for this, somewhat, by being relatively free with five-star reviews, which made up 41.27 percent. Four-star (and three-star, for that matter) ratings among Irish tourists, however, were relatively rare (ranked 73rd).

Spain may have a reputation for being a relaxed country and culture, given all the siestas they have to nap away their worries, this apparently stops at the country's border. Spaniards abroad are impressively ornery: not only are they but most likely to leave one- and two-star reviews (11.73 percent), they are sixth most likely to leave an unimpressed three-star review (18.68 percent) and the fifth least likely to leave a five-star review.