Talk:Tipping by region

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This article was nominated for deletion on 15 December 2007. The result of the discussion was keep.

[edit] 10-12% in Australia?

I completely agree with whoever disputed the section about Australia. It is flat out false.

I have to say having lived in Australia for the first 34 years of my life I never heard of tipping in restaurants. Sure, it's "appreciated" as it says - but where wouldn't giving cash to someone be appreciated? That USA article is out and out misleading. Tipping is not expected in any shape or form anywhere in Australia by anyone whatsoever.

Of course you're ALLOWED to tip, but there's plenty of other stuff that's not expected but also allowed that shouldn't be listed as custom. 70.189.213.149 (talk) 13:00, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks mate. The Sydney Morning Herald article is a very dubious reference too, because they appear to say their data is a based on a website www.tipping.org (ie lazy journalist does a web search) which has no real credibility. Meanwhile the USA Today article mentions "Sources: Magellan's, Travelocity, Fodor's, USA TODAY research". Well the last reference basically gives it away... "we made this stuff up"... This is why I think this article should not be here at all. It's impossible to have reliable references on this topic. I think I will delete statements throughout the article that rely on dubious elements of the USA Today and SMH articles. Barrylb (talk) 15:03, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

What a joke from ISP 70.189.213.149 - have you been living under a tree in Central Australia for the last 34 years I wonder? People can go ahead and doubt the veracity of the sources in the article if they want but they ought to provide their reasons (and hopefully other conflicting sources) when they do so. Until that happens surely the benefit of the doubt should go to what sources we DO have rather than the unfounded testimony of ISP 70.189.213.149, myself, or anyone else. And for the record, I would have thought that the assertion that "tipping is not expected in any shape or form anywhere in Australia by anyone whatsoever" was so obviously ridiculous and so easily disproven that, if anything, it would detract from the credibility of those who dispute the published tipping rates in the first place (after all - the "dispute" here was originally over the quality of the sources given ("USA Today" and the "Sydney Morning Herald"), not the rates that were published therein). Lofnazareth (talk) 16:17, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

So where in Australia is tipping "expected" - It isn't - This wikipedia doesn't even SAY that it is expected, it says that it "isn't expected but is appreciated", which is clearly fairly ludicrous wording as I pointed out in my original post. I think it can be taken as read tha "tipping is appreciated" everywhere where tipping is not customary. I don't know a single person who has -ever- tipped at a restaurant, beyond the "can't be bothered waiting for the change" thing. There's dozens of references around the web, travel guides etc that clearly state that Australia does not have tipping - They aren't hard to find. All the sources in support of tipping state that tipping isn't mandatory/expected but "is appreciated" - well no s*** Sherlock. I think youd be hard pressed to find a nation on the globe where it isn't "appreciated". You cite my statement that "tipping is not expected in any shape or form anywhere in Australia by anyone whatsoever" as "clearly ludicrous and disproven - yet this is more or less what this current Wikipedia entry states with the rather ambiguous "but is appreciated" tacked on at the end. If everything that was "not compulsory or expected but appreciated" was listed as fact or custom on Wikipedia like this, the usefulness of the site would be seriously in question.70.189.213.149 (talk) 23:20, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

I live in Australia too and i also have never tipped anyone in my life, and i have never seen anyone give a tip. its just not something that we do here. I have many friends who work in food service as waitstaff, and they all make very good money without need for tips, one even said she would be offended if someone tried to tip her, like it would suggest she needs their generosity.--Zoobz19 (talk) 15:58, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

I realise that anecdotal evidence is the worst form of evidence, but I will also concur that I live in Australia (in Sydney, which is the biggest Australian city) and have never felt the need to tip someone. On occasion I have tipped a taxi driver or a pizza delivery boy, but that is only for exceptional service, very similar to the description in the New Zealand section below Australia. Basically, the SMH article is right, but the wording is ambiguous, because by suggesting a tip, they imply that not providing it will get you in some sort of trouble (the way it does in the states). This is incorrect and a tip in Australia is always a (welcome) surprise, not an expectation. Ranglin (talk) 03:24, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Which brings me back to my original point - That we need to simply say Australia doesn't have customary tipping. It's ridiculous to list something as "A welcome surprise" as you very nicely put it, and then say "especially in the 10-12% range" - Is this suggesting that someone who gets a 5% tip wouldn't consider this enough to be a "welcome surprise"? The whole entry is nonsensical. If "welcome surprises" that "aren't expected" are going to be listed as tipping custom, we need to add that for every nation on the planet.70.180.211.82 (talk) 00:52, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

After having a look at the articles in question, I am even more convinced that these are very dubious references. The SMH article is actually a secondary source, with the quote in question coming from tipping.com, which is an American website. I visited tipping.com and I can't even find the quote as it was used in the SMH story, suggesting that they may have changed their minds in the last couple of years! The other article by USA Today seems to be more compelling (suggesting a 10 - 12% tip for Australian restaurants but no tip for other services), but again doesn't correlate with my experiences. As mentioned above, I worry about the quality of the research in the article, because it clearly says that New Zealand has no tipping, and yet seems to think that Australia (which is just over the way from NZ) has a totally different tipping custom. My experience has been that this is not the case, and I would think that the tipping custom that applies in NZ applies equally in Australia. Ranglin (talk) 03:36, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Spanish Section

As a Spaniard myself, I'd like to note that the article referenced from The Sydney Morning Herald has many big errors in reference to Spanish customs, so I've practically rewritten that section, leaving the reference to the previous article for the sake of completeness, but correcting and adding references to recent trends about tipping in Spain. The reference is a Spanish source, the newspaper Consumer Eroski, edited by a serious and important Spanish consumer group. I couldn't find good (that is, trusted) English sources about this, but you can check here or here for English views on the matter. The second link is somehow outdated (for example, most Spanish restaurants have now a "Not Smoking" area) but still useful. Scarbrow (talk) 20:22, 4 February 2008 (UTC)