Sometimes finding a nice place to eat while travelling is tough work. In many parts of the world, dining is a quintessential part of a country's culture. The art of tipping, on the other hand, is a bit of a different story.
Enter Jadon Stewart, an SEO intern with Found, and his infographic documenting tipping customs around the world.
"It is extremely common for people to travel to new areas of the globe and not be fully aware of the cultural differences in a variety of circumstances," notes Visual.ly, an infographic website hosting the chart. In parts of North America, gratuities of 15 to 20 per cent are expected if no service charge has been applied. Meanwhile, porters carrying your luggage often expect one to two dollars per bag, while tipping your taxi cab driver 10 per cent of the fare is common practice.
However, travellers in China and Japan aren't expected to tip their server or cab drivers at all -- save for in Hong Kong where a 10 per cent tip is customary -- since leaving a tip can be construed as offensive, implying the employee is undervalued by their employer. Gratuities might even prove costly to some workers in China, since accepting tips can be grounds for getting fired, though such cases are extreme.
On the other end of the tipping scale are automatic gratuities in places such as Burlington, Vermont, where it appears some of the city's restaurants have come under fire for applying mandatory tips against French-speaking customers. Dubbed the "Queeb tax" by some of Burlington's restaurant servers, the automatic charge -- that went as high of 18 per cent of a customer's bill -- aims to curb the supposedly poor tipping practices of Quebecers visiting the city.
In many parts of the U.S., the minimum wage is significantly lower than in Canadian provinces and servers rely on tips to make ends meet. In California, the minimum wage is eight dollars an hour and can go as low as $2.63/ hour in the state of Massachusetts. Vermont's minimum wage is $4.10 an hour.
When it doubt, a safe practice is paying a bit extra and telling your server to "keep the change." It might mean the difference between an enjoyable dining experience and getting locked up in a restaurant and having the cops called on you.
You Can Check Out The Differences In Tipping Around The Globe Below:
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