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Poll Shows Stinky Fellow Passengers and Boisterous Kids Push Travelers Buttons When on the Road

Dépèche transmise le 7 octobre 2009 par Business Wire

Poll Shows Stinky Fellow Passengers and Boisterous Kids Push Travelers Buttons When on the Road

SOUTHLAKE, Texas--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Travelocity’s 2009 Rudeness Poll reveals the opinions of nearly 1,600 North American travelers on an array of bad travel behavior, highlighting poor hygiene, oversized carry-on luggage and arguing families as among top travel peeves for U.S. respondents. From boarding the plane to dining out while on vacation, it seems rude behavior occurs at every stage of the trip.

“Whether I’m enjoying dinner with friends or perusing comments made to blog posts online, the topic of rude travelers always seems to get people talking,” Genevieve Shaw Brown, Travelocity senior editor, said. “Whatever the offense, emotions and opinions seems to fly freely when this subject is brought up, so we decided to poll our customers to find the worst offenders.”

Canadians and Americans are broadly similar in terms of the people and behaviors that annoy them on vacations. They generally agree about their least-favorite traveler to sit next to during a flight, passengers with “poor hygiene” being the top pick (45 percent of North Americans) and “coughing or sneezing passengers” coming in second (30 percent of North Americans).

Americans find “loud talking or swearing” (56 percent) and “kicking the seat” (50 percent) the most irritating on-board behavior. And, they say the most bothersome fellow travelers to encounter during vacation are arguing families (31 percent), boisterous kids (28 percent) and rowdy college students (24 percent).

Fellow Airline Passengers:

• More than 80 percent of respondents feel that large passengers should be seated in two seats. However, more than one-third of respondents believe that the customer should be required to pay for that second seat while 44 percent believe the large passenger should be accommodated at no extra cost.
• Passengers wrestling with larger than allowed carry-on luggage topped the list of irritations when boarding a plane with 29 percent of all poll respondents in agreement.
• Canadians are more irritated by poor queue discipline than their American counterparts with 29 percent reporting that they are most annoyed by people who crowd the boarding line, compared with only 20 percent of U.S. travelers who took the poll.
• Overwhelmingly, travelers who rush to deplane before those ahead of them are the most annoying at the end of a flight with 57 percent of respondents in agreement.

Traveling with Children:

• Boisterous kids are a common annoyance for travelers, but people traveling without children are twice as likely to be bothered by them (30 percent) as those traveling with children in tow (15 percent).
• Respondents say children running in restaurants (35 percent) and touching food at a buffet (33 percent) are their biggest pet-peeves when it comes to kid travelers.
• More than half of respondents think parents should remove a misbehaving child from a public setting and a significant third feel that such children should be reprimanded.
• Travelers with children have different peeves to those without, and are more likely to be bothered by topless sunbathers, men in Speedos and unattended kids at the pool.

For the complete results of Travelocity’s 2009 Rudeness Poll, visit www.travelocity.com/rudeness.

About Travelocity Global:

Travelocity® is committed to being the traveler's champion -- before, during and after the trip – and provides the most comprehensive and proactive guarantee in the industry. This customer-driven focus, backed by 24/7 live phone support, competitive prices and powerful shopping technology has made Travelocity one of the largest travel companies in the world with annual gross bookings of more than U.S. $10 billion. Travelocity also owns and operates: Travelocity Business® for corporate travel; igougo.com, a leading online travel community; lastminute.com, a leader in European online travel; and ZUJI, a leader in Asia-Pacific online travel. Travelocity is owned by Sabre Holdings Corporation, a world leader in travel marketing and distribution.