Vietnamese travelers most annoyed by peers’ mobile phone addiction

With the summer holiday season in full swing, online travel agency Agoda has been asking travelers what they think are the most annoying travel habits.

Noisy travelers (57 percent), travelers glued to their devices (47 percent), and those insensitive to cultural nuances (46) topped the most annoying habits of fellow travelers, according to Agoda's global 'Annoying Travel Habits' survey.

Mass tour groups and selfie-takers, cited by 36 percent and 21 percent respectively, completed the top five irritants list.

Chinese travelers seemingly have the highest tolerance for selfie-takers, with only 12 percent of Chinese respondents irritated with them, compared to Australians who are on the other end of the tolerance spectrum, with nearly a third (31 percent) citing holiday selfie-takers as annoying.

Insensitivity to local culture nuances is more than twice as irritating for Singaporeans (63 percent), Filipinos (61 percent) and Malaysians (60 percent) as it is for Chinese (21 percent) and Thai (27 percent) travelers. About half of British (54 percent) and two-fifths of American travelers (41 percent) are intolerant of this habit.

Mobile device addiction

Almost half (47 percent) of the global respondents cited travelers spending too much time on their mobile devices a major irritant. Compared to travelers from other countries, most Vietnamese (59 percent) find this habit most annoying (59).

Thai travelers, on the other hand, have the most relaxed attitude (31 percent) towards constant device usage on holiday.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, solo travelers spend nearly two hours a day on their devices when on holiday (117 minutes) - which is 15 percent more time than when they are traveling with friends (100 minutes) and 26 percent more time than if they are with family (86 minutes). Americans are the only exception to this trend, on average spending less time on their devices when traveling solo (62 minutes) than when they are with family (66 minutes) or friends (86 minutes).

Brits are the most engaged travelers when traveling together, limiting their screen time to just over an hour (63 minutes) a day; comparatively, Thai travelers spend more than two hours a day (125 minutes) on the phone when they travel with friends or family.

To encourage travelers to pay attention and really experience new destinations without their faces in their screens, Agoda has launched a 'Selfie Fail' campaign comprising of cheeky listicles and a video montage highlighting the pitfalls of smartphone dependence.

Styled in the format of 'epic fail' videos, Australian comedian Ozzyman narrates footage of real travelers getting into silly accidents and situations as a result of paying more attention to their devices than to their surroundings.