What to know
- While Canadians may have a reputation for being nice, a new survey by Hotels.com shows some sneaky travel habits.
- Bad habits Canadians engage in while staying in hotels include: taking extra food from the breakfast buffet, stealing robes and slippers, and lying about anniversaries to get free room upgrades.
- However, just because Canadians are sneaky doesn’t mean they’ve lost all decorum. Canadians don’t like when people are rude to hotel staff, smoke in non-smoking areas, or slam doors in the middle of the night.
While Canadians may have a reputation for being nice, as it turns out, data shows people from Canada aren’t that nice when travelling.
A new survey by Hotels.com shows that 88 per cent of Canadians think of themselves as considerate tourists, but in reality the number of us that are actually considerate is significantly lower.
Here are the survey’s top findings:
Although 44 per cent of Canadians say they consider themselves among the world’s most courteous guests during hotel stays, the data shows that a lot of us participate in some unsavoury behaviour as per hotel standards. For instance, over a quarter of travellers from Canada admit to taking food from the breakfast buffet back to their rooms, while less than 10 per cent of Canadians also take hotel robes and slippers.
It turns out that younger Canadians are even sneakier during hotel stays. About 17 per cent of travellers aged 18 to 24 years old admit to lying about birthdays or anniversaries to score a free room upgrade, compared to just four per cent of Baby Boomers.
Canadians might swipe some extra bacon or hotel slippers, but they draw the line at mistreating hotel staff or breaking common courtesy rules. Over half of Canadians don’t like to see other guests being rude to employees (66 per cent), smoking in non-smoking areas (60 per cent), or door-slamming during late-night hours (59 per cent).
Winning over a Canadian on vacation isn’t hard either. According to the same survey, 67 per cent of Canucks said the fastest way to their heart is free breakfast, and 51 per cent also wouldn’t mind a free room upgrade.
