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I haven’t found Americans to be more difficult to please. However, there are some things that might explain your experiences:
Americans get very little vacation time. There is zero legally mandated vacation time. Typically, office workers get ten days per year and five days of sick time. As Americans don’t travel much so they are not used to traveling. Also, they want each travel experience to be “perfect” because they are rare.
America is a country where customizing is common. We have a restaurant with the slogan, “Have it your way.” We are used to asking if pretty much anything can be changed to suit our taste.
Americans are taught less about other cultures than people in many other countries.
This was a great post, @Alia_Gee - I think you are very right.
Taking this a bit further, away from stereotyping Americans - this led me to thinking who I am, what role Airbnb hosts have in this business.
Most of the time, I feel like the hotel owner, the boss, the big guy. In fact, you might like to start calling me Eberhard Hilton, heir to Conrad Nicholson Hilton, future CEO of Hilton Worldwide, one of the world’s largest chains of hotels. Right now, I am still learning by running my small Airbnb, with two rooms, but I have high flying ambitions.
However, my guests might not think of me as Eberhard Hilton when booking a room with me. Instead, they see me as the guy cleaning their sheets, and the toilet, and doing all the low, blue-collar work.
There is a great big mismatch of perceptions here.
I already voiced the same impressions about the American guests on another topic. There I speculated that it is about the cultural shock of coming to a different continent and wondered out loud whether American hosts have similar experiences with guests from Europe. Now, I know that Europe is much more diverse as a continent, but still, I would be curious whether American hosts perceive European (or some other guests) more difficult to please.
It’s true. Speaking as a life-long American, we are a very self-centered people. We are raised to believe our way of life is the best and our culture is superior to all others. With that, 70% of Americans don’t even hold a passport. SO, the majority of us have never even been outside our borders and have no clue what the rest of the world is like. Our government promotes a very capitalist economy where the customer is always king and must have the ground he walks upon flooded with rose petals for the sake of competitive advantage. So, it’s not uncommon to see American travelers walking into every situation expecting to be catered to.
And, it’s true. Many of my worst guests have been Americans. Lucky for me, they represent a small fraction of my guests as most by far are from Australia, Korea and France.
I’ve found people who aren’t from big cities the hardest to please.
They expect more bang for their buck, and i don’t blame them - when I visited family in rolling farm country, we went to the “nice” pasta place, and dinner for 10 was $100 plus tip. In my neighborhood, which is cheaper than Manhattan, that will get you a nice pasta dinner for two, and either wine or dessert but not both.
So, I think culture shock is real, but for us it’s more urban vs not, than continental vs not.
I’ve always thought I was very lucky that my first big city was London. It was a kinder place to get my country bumpkin spots knocked off than, say, Paris… (Paris was magical, but the cars tried to run me over)
I suppose I’m lucky that my place does not generally attract such picky guests. Personally, I haven’t found Americans to be harder to please than any other nationality. I do find age and experience of travelling to be major factors, though. My most difficult guests have been older American, Canadian and Australian travellers who have never travelled so far before (I’m in UK) and usually underestimate the amount of time it takes to travel between places in Europe. So they get tired and confused and therefore grumpy and unhappy.
edit I should add older English guests new to Airbnb to that list too! Although they haven’t travelled far, they are often very ready to look down their noses and expect things to be like a traditional B&B (tray with kettle and biscuits etc etc)
When my dad was driving the family around Paris (or Barcelona - more or less the same traffic wise in those days) he would get fed up of my mum squeaking and screaming and would yell to me ‘Jackie, give yer mother a large brandy, willya?’
I prefer to think of these kinds of guests as people who try to replicate their home wherever they go instead of difficult to please. This is because I believe these people are not being willfully difficult; they just haven’t learned to adapt to other cultures. I agree with you that our guests who live in rural areas often find cities unpleasant. We’ve had three sets of guests who live in rural areas who had a hard time sleeping because they could hear noise made by humans. The country I’ve had the most guests from who try to replicate their country is England. None of my English guests have complained about my stovetop kettle or my top sheets and comforters. However, several have been unnerved by the pilot lights on my burners (hobs) and in my oven always being on. They’ve also insisted that if they use a clothes dryer their clothes will shrink. Unfortunately, they use every surface in the guest room to dry clothes including the wood ones. So far, none of them could bring themselves to drink the Lipton Yellow Label tea that I drink. They usually buy PG Tips or Tyhpoo. I like it when they buy PG Tips as I think it tastes delicious. I give or throw away the Typhoo as I don’t like the flavor. English guests often buy English food instead of trying American food.
Mm, tea. We can get pg tips, here, but the herbal varieties in the UK are much more varied. My sister loves the strawberry raspberry flavor, so we fill one suitcase with herbal tea and chocolates on our return trip.
An interesting fact is that although Liptons was founded in the UK, it hasn’t been marketed here for many many years. The only time Brits see Liptons is when they go abroad. I can only speak for myself, of course, but I find it horribly weak and insipid. The tea, that is! We can indeed be a bit particular about our tea. (recent memories of being handed a warm cup of water and a tea-bag … good god.) And yes, it’s a well-known fact here that dryers will shrink all your clothes and probably melt them as well, particularly American ones.
I’m a bit surprised at these. In the UK (or at least, when I lived there) pilot lights were common on gas cookers and instant water heaters. I’ve also never come across a British person who thought that a tumble drier would shrink clothes.
I think I can explain that. American food has a bad reputation in Europe. True, for many their only experiences are Mc Donalds and Dunkin Donuts but nevertheless, in Europe we read a lot about the dangers of the American diet, regarding health and obesity.
Even after 23 years in the States, we buy our groceries from Belgian, French and Italian delis. When we eat out, we go to European-owned restaurants. Truly, having seen both sides of the coin, I know which I prefer
For me, I prefer to put the teabag in the cup before I pour in the water and I like the water to be boiling, not warm. Other than that, what is wrong with a cup, a teabag and hot water? Lipton’s Yellow Label is plenty strong enough for me, but I don’t put milk in my tea.
Why do American dryers in particular shrink clothes? Mine has an extra-low heat setting and an air only setting.
However, I seriously would question your assertion. I truly don’t think that the USA has a [quote=“EllenN, post:36, topic:15008”]
rich and diverse food culture which includes plenty of healthy food.
[/quote]
Yes, I agree that healthy food is available here. But (and this is only my opinion) that healthy food, especially when eating out, is provided by European restaurants. You only have to look at the TV ads for fast food places.
I really think that the ‘rich and diverse food culture’ in the USA is provided by Europeans.
However, I am fully aware that this is a particular bee I have in my bonnet. So I’m more than happy to be convinced otherwise
(Paris was magical, but the cars tried to run me over)
