IT might come as a shock to some Britons but France is seen as the most welcoming country in Europe.
The accolade has come from Chinese tourists who were asked to name the country showing the most hospitality to travellers.
Australia topped the list, followed by Singapore, with France and New Zealand equal third.
The next most welcoming European countries, in 10th-equal place, were the UK and Germany in statistics compiled by Hotels.com.
France also beat the UK, and other European countries, on a list of places Chinese travellers would like to go to and also to which they have been. Topping the wish list was Australia, with France second and New Zealand third. The UK was seventh. The country the Chinese had visited most was the US, with France fifth and the UK sixth.
Of the destinations searched for by Chinese travellers on Hotels.com in the first five months of this year, Hong Kong was top, with Paris ninth and London 13th. The French and the UK capitals were the only European destinations in the top 20 in this category.
Hotels.com said by 2017 it is predicted that Chinese tourists will spend £1 billion in the UK, an increase of 84% compared with 2013.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article