Struth! Tipping the scale – who would have thought?

IN his continuing search for the more weird, whacky and wondrous in the world of travel, David Ellis says that while the vast majority of Australians will tell you they’ve an aversion to the concept of tipping, a survey just undertaken by MasterCard has found that 46% of us claim that we are, in fact, regular tippers.

MasterCard surveyed 7,932 people aged between 18 and 64 years across fourteen countries in Asia and the Pacific, and found the worst tippers to be the Japanese – just 4% saying they leave a tip.

At the other end of the scale, 84% of Thais said they always left one, 78% of Indians and 73% of Philippinos. 

With 46% of Australians saying they leave a tip, we’re well in front of our New Zealand cousins – over there, just 12% tip regularly, while in Myanmar 42% do so, 33% in Indonesia, 31% in Malaysia, 20% in both Singapore and Vietnam, 10% in South Korea and 12% in Taiwan.

And overall those aged over 45 were generally quicker to offer a tip than those between 18 and 29, with men more regularly opening the wallet than women.