Map of the worlds most welcoming countries
 

I have just spotted this on advrider and thought I would repost it here to see what Hubbers think. I have spotted what I believe to be a massive error with it and am curious to see if anybody else notices it.

A surprising map of the countries that are most and least welcoming to foreigners

Totallly agree! ....masive error. Well I dont want to offend anyone - but for sure I had bad experiences in a lot of blue countries ...and lot of good in red ones.....latest Iran , which so far has been the best country I ever travelled !! .....

Surely not a scientific survey. Or even a useful one for determining a friendly place to visit.

The WEF gathered the data from late 2011 through late 2012 by asking respondents, “How welcome are foreign visitors in your country?”

This seems to people's perception of their fellow countrymen. A better survey would ask the foreign visitors how well they felt welcome. I felt quite welcome in Russia, but maybe the Russians think that their fellow countrymen and not welcoming (regardless of how welcoming the respondent himself may be).
A better question would have been “Do YOU welcome foreign visitors in your country?”

It depends a lot on your nationality. Because of their presidents war politic US passport holders are not very wellcome in arabic countrys and often have to pay a higher price for their visum...
For me Brasil Argentina and Chile were the most wellcoming countrys but i hate Nigeria and to get a visa for Angola was a nightmare...

http://reisemotorrad.eu

my number one least welcoming place ever is .......................
 

Liverpool UK ! ( not including any Hubbers ...........or course :innocent: )
Felt unwelcome and under more threat than I ever felt anywhere else, including I might add, being caught in the middle of "Arab Spring" demo a few years ago.
But then Liverpool is red anyway isn't it ?

But seriously, it is an interesting map but totally accurate............. for one person and that's the person who produced it and interpreted the data gathered to make it. Everyone could produce a similar map but no two would be the same.

Gathering your own data would be fraught with problems, as it depends how you approach people in the first instance. Even the most unwelcoming 6ft tall 300 lb bearded axe murderer would be very welcoming if a very attractive young lady in the shortest shorts and top .........etc You get the idea.

It very much depends on who you are and how you are with others as to what response you get in return. Being a "traveller" you most likely enjoy meeting others and make the effort to be friendly and so on. I have friends who go on holiday and do the all inclusive sit at the pool get drunk thing and never go out of the complex. They think its great and the people are very "welcoming" Drop them in the middle of a souk in Marrakesh and they would hate it and say the people are not "welcoming" Anyone who has been there will know this is not the case at all !

The map? Give a blank one to 30 five year old kids and ask them to colour it in with blue and red - same result really

Tim........still waiting to get away :(

Malaysia. Got to be one of the most welcoming and traveller-friendly country that I've visited.

Looks more like a political map , and a lot of bull shit!

As per the points made in earlier posts, it all depends on the individual personal experiences which, by definition, are personal i.e. they vary from one to another person and with time, and with location - so, there are plenty of variables there.
Which glaring error you perceive depends on your own perspective.
For instance: quite a few of the countries shown in red are reported to be quite welcoming to a certain US citizen who was recently disowned by the USA with his passport being cancelled.
On the other hand, a whole range of European countries were less than welcoming to the President of Bolivia recently, who only wanted to overfly them or stop off at one of them for a slurp of avgas fuel. :innocent:

The UK thinks it is welcoming of foreigners? I'm sure the official prefered policy is for all tourists to land, leave their money and depart by the next possible means but that also seems to hold true for internal travellers who wish to use our tourist industry.
Austria must rate itself so highly because they've closed Matthausen.

dont trust any statistic that you did not fake yourself
 

... so true as we all know this map is a lot of bull shit .... as so much bull shit comes out of Washington DC ... we should just stop listening to it, and go find out what the world looks like - and than expose the liars and criminals.

mika

What a complete waste of some ones time.....doh

Not if the person who compiled it was trying to influence how people think and the decisions they make, if that was their aim I expect it was very successful.

When you have nothing to do - then make work, when you have nothing to print then put something in to fill the space.

I'd think it is 'journalistic fill', probably done by a junior reporter to provide fill on a no news day.

I wonder if it is possible to set up our own survey of members based on their own personal experiences, one that allows people to rate countries from 1 to 5 for most welcoming? I personally would not know how to set it up but perhaps one of the site boffins does, it would be interesting to compare it to the one in The Washington Post.

"The person who compiled it" was not a person at all: it was the World Economic Forum, a Swiss nonprofit, and you can read the whole thing yourself after clicking on the link in the WaPost article. Anyone tempted to blame the whole thing on Washington D.C. (e.g., #10) might want to limber up their critical thinking skills before posting.

The research itself is fatally flawed, of course, as are the conclusions drawn. The attempt is interesting, and the report itself showed some promise before it sent me into a stupor by page 50 or so.

Mark

It would remain a review of personal experience which is a huge variable.
The nearest thing to this are probably individual blogs and ride reports (I recall reading a post from Kathmandu from a guy who was ill while shacked up in his hotel so he had a very negative view of the city - in contrast, I had a great time in KTM).

Mali is a bit of a joke or at least, out of date.

Yes, Mark, thank you for looking deeper into it and finding the WEF in charge of it. No, I did not do my homework before posting, this is right.

But dont forget that nearly all of the big news outlets just copy and paste, and if a story comes from e.g. the WEF than it must be right and can be printed. Maybe the same map was printed in other newspapers as well, so just blaming one was wrong, you are right.

But the map shows one thing very clearly: start thinking critical if your newspaper prints this kind of bull shit.

Of course you could argue now, that it was all a mistake by the WEF and that only the person in charge made a mistake. For me it is just what it is ... political propaganda ... and this is what anaconda moto stated very clearly.

As this is a travel forum, maybe my comments about liars and criminals did not fit here, but what the heck it is the HUBB bar. So, I am sorry if you still believe most of the stuff that comes out of Washington DC and you dont agree with my comments.

Mark, please this is not the place to start a political argument. I have read many of your posts here on the HUBB and I find them all very good and informative, so if you want to continue about politics, then send me a pm and I will take the time to answer.

Greetings from Switzerland
mika

The WEF is the same outfit that organises the annual shindig in Davos for the great and the good to strut their stuff:-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Economic_Forum
Switzerland has a goodly share of such organisations based, in part, on their historic claims to neutrality; nowadays, they have sold that neutrality to the highest bidder - the EU.
Discussion is possible in the bar?

As for "critical thinking" regarding newsprint, surely such a skill should be applied to all manner of information?

Meantime, here in the UK anyway, most newsprint is struggling to adapt to the digital age - they rarely have original writing by professional journalists (such as in depth investigative journalism) preferring to be a mouthpiece for miscellaneous politicians, hacks and other shysters with a potion to peddle.
?c?

Blame the French
 

Mali and Chad are both attributed a deep red; must be something to do with the French influence/colonialism??

My hat off to you for getting that far.

That is exactly what I would expect but aren't there going to be huge variables in this survey anyway as from what I can gather it is based on the question “How welcome are foreign visitors in your country?” At least allowing people to click for instance their favourite and least favourite countries, or perhaps grade all of the countries they have visited give some idea about how member's personal experiences compare to those of the report?

Yes basically they have got the color code wrong as it is the opposite where red is the most friendless and blue the lesser :innocent:

Mali's in blue. Mauritania is shown in red.

Might as well use the results of the Eurovision song contest!

Andy

As I am currently in Azerbaijan I can vouch for the people being friendly so you might have a point.

Quite right; apologies, I must get my Ms sorted!

Weird, but Mauri and Mali, right next door to each other, are at the extremes of the colour coding - perhaps another indicator that the results of the survey are pretty random?

Mali is so welcoming they even chop your head off if your name is Edwin Dyer.

Haven't looked at the map so can't see what colour France is(on my phone in Mongolia, so can't open another window on my browser), but may I suggest that the French should be put squarely in the unwelcoming category?

May I also suggest that as this is a Swiss map it's as sh!te as that Swiss automobile association map of where CdPs are needed? :innocent: