Last week, France’s tourism authorities embarked on a campaign to eradicate their image as a nation of rude, snobby baguette-eaters to make them more appealing to tourists. Around 30,000 copies of a six-page booklet titled Do You Speak Touriste? were distributed to taxi drivers, waiters, hotel managers and sales people in popular tourist districts, from the banks of the Seine river up to Montmartre, and even to cites outside Paris such as Versailles and Fontainebleau.

The handbook is filled with greetings in eight languages including German, Chinese and Portuguese. It also dishes out advice on the spending habits and behaviour of different nationalities to better cater to them. On top of that, there’s even a website version of the handbook.

France is hardly the first country attempting to be more tourist-friendly. Singapore had its very own Courtesy Campaign back in 1978, kick-started by the Singapore Tourism Board to woo tourists. Hong Kong launched a Be A Good Host Campaign in 1998 while its Immigration Department continues to hold an annual courtesy campaign where travellers are encouraged to vote for a Courtesy Ambassador. The Macau Government Tourist Office runs a Tourism Awareness Campaign urging its citizens to be “helpful, friendly, polite, knowledge and smiling” to tourists. Moscow, tired of constantly being on the blacklist of least tourist-friendly cities, has been on the charm offensive for the past couple of years, installing street signs in English and starting the Moscow Greeter Initiative, a walking tour with local residents to showcase the sights and hospitality of their city. Shanghai tried tackling its population’s poor habits in 2001 with the “Seven Nos” campaign (no spitting, no jaywalking, no littering ...), stepping up efforts before tourists descended for the World Expo in 2010.

FROM MY CITY TO YOURS

A country’s reputation doesn’t just rest on what tourists see and experience inside the country — it also extends to the behaviour of its citizens overseas.

Incidentally, an Expedia poll in 2009 saw the French bag the dubious honour of being the worst travellers, citing them as “bad tippers, cheap, rude and averse to foreign languages”.

A Skyscanner poll in 2011 deemed the British as the worst tourists while the Russians topped that same poll for rudest travellers. The ugly American, meanwhile, came up first in LivingSocial’s poll of World’s Worst Tourists last year.

But 2013 surely belongs to Chinese. First came reports that a Chinese toddler pooped publicly on the floor of Kaoshiung Airport in January (although it must be said the mother did lay out some newspapers first).

It was followed by a similar incident in February, which was captured on Weibo — this time a Chinese kid defecated along an airplane aisle. There was also the notorious incident of the 15-year-old boy who scrawled “Ding Jinhao was here” on a 3,500-year-old temple in Egypt’s Luxor.

Most recently, news emerged that a bunch of shutter-happy Chinese tourists allegedly caused the death of an injured dolphin in Sanya, Hainan, when they were more concerned with taking photos with the animal instead of helping it.

Such behaviour has prompted one of China’s vice-premiers, Wang Yang, to lament the “uncivilised behaviour” of his people last month. And China’s Central Guidance Commission For Building Spiritual Civilisation and the China National Tourism Administration reissued guidelines on what is acceptable tourist behaviour, from not spitting in public to not shouting.

A new Chinese Tourism Law will also take effect in October, which allows travel agencies to cancel contracts with tourists who “engage in activities that violate social ethics”. We’re guessing that means booting off generally embarrassing travellers.

WORK IN PROGRESS

But before you snigger, it’s best to remember that the image of the ugly Singaporean abroad belonged to a not-so-distant past. The mass hysteria and profiteering that broke out last week over the haze indicate we might not be the gracious, considerate and resilient people we aspire to be just yet.

Perhaps our biggest problem as tourists is expecting things to be just like they are in Singapore when we’re overseas.

But there’s a reason why it’s called travelling. We go to a different country to experience different cultures and meet different people. If you want things to be as efficient and organised as Singapore, then stay in Singapore. There’s not much of a point in taking a plane to grouse about stuff like how everything’s either too crowded or too ulu, too expensive, too dirty, too slow, too jammed, too complicated … you get the idea.

Still, take heart. We’re definitely savvier, more well-travelled, cultured and cosmopolitan than before. But we could improve further to avoid lapsing into being an obnoxious ignoramus.

You know, before our government gives us a handbook or guidelines on how to behave, too.