Here's a story I found while checking my e-mail  that angered me and inspired the title for this thread called Hollister Models Post Racist Photos from South Korea Store Opening, Get Fired

My favorite part of the whole story is "Yahoo! Shine looked on Hollister's Facebook page and found many critical user comments, including those saying "stupid racists shame on you. I'm done with Hollister," and "You make me ashamed to be part of the American culture. How can you not screen your employees on cultural awareness."

and I hope the company Hollister's do something about these acts of immaturity! This can't be good for business at all.

It's funny how American's wonder why foreigners hate and despise us! It couldn't the fact that American tourists act like a*******s and immature brats overseas right?

Beside the facts of foreign false stereotypes that all Americans are fat and rich and have a Ferrari in their garage (or something like that) this type of acts of immaturity of American tourist only stirs the hatred and is like putting gasoline in the fire.

I can't blame them neither for their assumptions of the American people when we take what they don't have for granted everyday. This is what makes me ashamed to call myself an American sometimes.

But I'm not innocent as I had done impressions of the Asian accents and other foreign ones as well for a little humor but at least I can say I have enough consideration to not do these impressions in front of them right ?  

I'm pretty sure people in foreign countries have done impressions of us Americans but I don't see them coming over here and mocking us....  

So tell me am I right to think that most but not all of the American people are ignorant in some way or another ?

I think everyone is ignorant in some part of their life.

On the topic: Those people are an embarrassment to America. People should think about their actions!

That and they should grow up a little more and stop acting like their in high school like a lot of college aged young people do these days...

I still think I'm a bit ignorant in some ways but mature in others as I'm ignorant in the way the real world works but mature in my actions.....

Oh the joys of it all.... being the immature one and the reasonable one years later.... My travels make up for it

Well they weren't tourists. And I did hear that they were fired.

Yes, bad behaviour abroad reflects very poorly on your homeland. But Aussies and Brits and numerous other nationalities are just as bad.

I think it's just tourists in general because they don't have as much of an incentive to act right somewhere where nobody knows them. My town is basically a tourist attraction, and every summer we get people from other states coming over here. A lot of them are condescending and just generally act bad. Inhibitions go down as the chance of being recognized go down-this also explains a lot of behavior on the Internet.

Not all of them are like that though, I shouldn't generalize.

If you add Americans on the list, along with the French.... who is worst on a list of four?

I might have to pass on that question.

Is it meaningful to mark a distinction between tourists, travellers, and people abroad on business or maybe family reasons?

Yes. People working abroad generally have a worse attitude than tourists, but are also more likely to try to stay out of legal trouble. People who are in and out on business are generally better. People who are abroad visiting family and friends are usually better behaved than tourists as well.

There are also different categories of tourists to consider, and that makes a big difference.

I think about tourists as those people who are abroad for the sake of being out of the country, maybe as a status thing, maybe as a "we wanted to spend the money we had saved" kind of thing (which is a status thing in disguise); I think of travelers as people who are genuinely interested in their destination and wish to experience it.  Tourists ride tour buses.  Travelers know that tourbuses never let you experience the foreign land.  And then I thought of people who were simply dragged overseas (or otherwise out of the country) and the first reason I thought of was business.

Calling yourself a "traveller" rather than a "tourist" is pretty much a form of snobbery due to the negative associations of The word "tourist". IMO anyway. It is what it is.