CF Tourists - is it worse ??

[WeWillLookBack]

We have just got back from a few days in Cornwall - we live in Devon, so spend a lot of time in both counties and are very used to tourists and holiday makers. We stayed in a 'pub with rooms on the beach, which was lovely. However - I am utterly gobsmacked by the level of CF we have witnessed in the 3 days. It feels like peoples entitlement is off the scale. I don't know how those in hospitality are dealing with it.

Wednesday - Woman went mental at the poor young lad serving in the beer garden - insisted she had booked a table outside. Very politely told her that they do not take reservations for the garden, just the restaurant. Screaming ' Are you calling me a liar'. He went in, and didn't come back out.

Friday AM - they serve breakfast for guests 8am-9.30am, then open for breakfast at 9.30am (lots of signs saying open at 9.30am). At 8.30am a group were outside - rattling the door. Member of staff opens the door, and lets them know they open at 9.30am. Lots of moaning - insisting they can have breakfast now etc. She says no - very polite. So he tells her it is disgusting that they allow guests to sit in the window eating when others can't ! ( and to make up for their error, they should serve them breakfast too)

Friday evening - Family of 6 rocked up - no space in the beer garden. Started shouting - so the owner came out. Man very angry - they had driven for 6 hours - and the kids needed feeding. The owner was great - polite but firm. The man actually suggested the owner walk around the beer garden and checked when people were leaving so they could secure a table. He said no. A lot of swearing. Asked to leave.

Drive home Saturday morning. Along a winding road along the coast - car in front just stops. Man gets out and stands looking at the sea. Single lane - so I cant go around him. After a few moments I beep - he stomps over to my car and says 'Can I help you' ... I say you have blocked the road - could you move please. To which he responds 'I am looking at the view - maybe you could just be kind' FFS !!!

I work in Tourism and this year the % of people who seem to leave their brains at home is astounding.

As a customer advisor I would like to thank you, sincerely, for basic manners. You would honestly be shocked at the way a lot speak to us. A lot of it comes from the older males. I'm always extra nice when I need to call any where.

Not tourism CF but I think the entitled, rude and sometimes nasty behaviour has increased over the last couple of years. Worse during mandatory mask wearing, the abuse some shop workers received. Disgraceful.

Lovely restaurant on Anglesey on the sand dunes has a large car park. A motor home was parked up there when the staff were locking up they noticed that it was still there so went across to ask the occupants to leave. They kicked up such a fuss. Complaints to the local paper. They hadn't even dined there but had decided it was a beautiful spot to spend a FREE night

MrsAvocet I'd have got out of the car and told him to reverse.

Sorry to say, a 20 something I work with was genuinely amazed to hear that disposable barbecues are a problem. I think he read a headline saying "climate change causes fire" and thinks grassy areas just combust.

The right to roam stuff should be taught. Maybe basic manners should be taught too.

I have long hated the trend of turning everything into a noisy attraction though. In London it's so depressing to see all the trucks arrive to set up music at Kenwood House, for example. I know it makes money, people love it. But I honestly think there's a peace and quiet we will never get back.

I was chatting with someone who said "some people need noise the way you need quiet". My nearest green space for proper escape is now ruined by music played out loud. To be fair, that happened before lockdown but has got worse.

If people need noise they can still use earphones for music.

side note - someone mentioned men. I am finding they are a lot more aggressive but had put it down to drugs.

I'm wondering what I've missed in the deleted post

And they need to teach the country code in schools. As in ‘no, you shouldn’t be doing a full Insta shoot with those tiny lambs and carrying them all round the field’

No. The Country Code should be on telly adverts paid for by the government, as it was when I was a child ( when it was all fields round here).

But an awful lot of people won't see that. I only have streaming services and if
I watch regular TV at mum's, we mute the ads.

also, there's so much visual clutter in England now, I don't clock what's on billboards or Tube ads unless they're super annoying.

Maybe ads on social media...

(not tourist related but) on DS1's last day at after school club (he's going Big School in September), I collected him and said a heartfelt thanks to the member of staff there. She's looked after him for years there, she does a great job, and she's really lovely.

She was delighted to be thanked, as she said hardly any parents ever thank her!

I couldn't get my head round that. Childcare is difficult, relentless, the pay is shit and they are looking after your precious children. Why wouldn't you thank the people who go out of their way to do it really well? Boggling.

I read today that we should be teaching finance/pensions in school too. Shall we just get rid of English? Geography? Spanish?

Integrate it into the existing subjects. "Now who can tell me the Spanish for 'please close the gate'?"

TBH, incorporating finance/pensions/budgets/compound interest etc into the curriculum would be a good idea. It’s information that would benefit everybody in future life.

As a young adult, I’d have found it far more useful than remembering what a blooming oxbow lake is!

Finance and pensions etc should be on the curriculum, could be part of maths and a basic legal education.

I agree with the pension thing but what's that got to do with CF on holiday.

They’d only need to teach the course try code in towns and cities. The kids around here know not to leave gates open, feed the horse in the field any old shite, dump rubbish in the brook, shit on the footpaths, chase the pregnant ewes for a laugh, park in front of farm gates, trample crops, go anywhere near the field with the beef cattle in it (I reckon we should ring the village with field of them, that would discourage the twats).

A friend of ours own a huge, beautiful, disused house in the centre of the village. They are just going through the tedious planning to bring it back up to a habitable state. Over the second and third lockdown they discovered five separate groups on different occasions had broken into their garden and we’re having picnics, family parties, Instagram shoots etc. They were gobsmacked. They’ve had to have all the gates and walls secured so it is impossible to get in.

I don't think social media's had an honorary mention here yet for its role in encouraging CF tendencies in some tourists?

Businesses in residential areas can do well from repeat visits and word-of-mouth recommendations, but those catering to tourists are more reliant on online reviews.

Enter the CF tourists; the grass-roots embodiment of the saying "Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely". They prance around like a low-rent Louis XIV or Henry VIII, pressurise businesses into accepting unreasonable demands / behaviour to avoid receiving 1-star reviews, and look down on the employees as modern-day serfs.

For those having to routinely deal with such people, maybe a quick assessment with colleagues of nominations for your 'Despot of the day' or 'W**ker of the week' award will help take some of the sting out of it...

Before the keyboard warriors limber up, that was a tongue-in-cheek suggestion..😋. However there's a great podcast, "Beach too Sandy, Water too Wet", where the hosts also combat self-entitled bad behaviour with humour, by reading out ridiculous 1-star reviews that usually reveal a lot more about the reviewer than the place they're reviewing.

As the hosts also say though, a good way of supporting the hospitality industry is by writing positive reviews yourself, even if it's just to express appreciation at how well a place has dealt with the last two difficult years, plus the ongoing difficult customers.

Basically we probably should just take kids at the end of maternity leave to some type of boarding school where they csn be taught everything from maths to driving laes and return them to parents at about 16.

Because there is no other way schools csn teach everything people want them to. Oh qnd lessons in basic etiquette like servers aren't idiots and customer is actually often wrong😁

@tiredvommachineasaurus if WSM is what I think it is - no, much further north. I presume the behaviour is universal for all English seaside resorts, whether “naice” or not. Usual small minority spoiling it for everyone.

I've worked in hospitality and thr best place I was in had no supervisors so if we got CFery we coukd just give it straight back without consequences it was great. It's still the same too. The place got away with it because the location is so unique it has no competition and is always full.

That reminds me of when we visited Versailles. The palace was full of Japanese all taking pictures, with cameras on selfie sticks. I wonder if any of them knew what they'd seen until they got home and looked at the pictures!
Also, I wonder if part of the tourist problem is the number of places like Disneyland or Centre Parcs, where everything is based around the needs of the tourists. So when they go to an actual living town or village they still assume everything is catered for their benefit?

I agree - it's fashionable to blame the young, but since I was in my 20s, I've always found 50+ men to be the most entitled, followed by yummy mummies.

The palace was full of Japanese all taking pictures, with cameras on selfie sticks. I wonder if any of them knew what they'd seen until they got home and looked at the pictures!

I know a Japanese tour guide and the background info that she gives while everybody is on the tour coach is pretty detailed. The tours she guides are run to a very strict timetable with objective being to cram as much in to a country visit as possible. With some sights, they might only get five minutes. Just enough time to get off the coach and take a selfie with the subject of the visit the background. Apparently, the photos are extremely important to prove to the people back home that they have actually been there.

I totally agree with this.

Yeah those CF’s. How dare they be concerned for children’s safety! Could their entitlement get any worse!!