Everyone seems to talk about the supposedly high Chinese tourist spend, but in reality the only people who tend to benefit are a tiny select few luxury retailers and duty free stores. Away from that, it's more about cooking instant noodles inside the hotel room's kettle and only visiting the rather mediocre Chinese restaurants that their tour guide has arranged for them; older Chinese tourists in particular aren't even the slightest bit adventurous. Chinese tourists tend to only stay anywhere for about half a day, get shepherded onto a coach by a flag carrying tour guide and move onto the next place to do nothing but take a quick walk, take a few photos whilst wearing their tour group issued baseball caps and then repeat.

Friends in Taiwan, Vietnam and Thailand have told me that when Chinese tourists leave, they feel happy because the Japanese and Koreans come back. Even the rudest and most brash, arrogant typical wealthy Russian tourist is much preferred to the Chinese tour groups.

The only decent Chinese tourists travel independently, have probably been international students in the past and can usually speak English fluently.

Inexperienced Japanese travelers were awkward in the past, but at least they were clean, tidy and polite. For that alone, you could forgive them for constantly snapping photos of the most dull and boring things imaginable. Americans were irritating, but you could always tell that they meant well. Chinese tourists don't quite manage to do this.