Places where we're welcomed

Anyone still thinking about planning a trip abroad may be interested in research released recently by the Pew Research Center, which compared the list of the countries we most like to visit with one that shows countries whose populations express favorable opinions of us.

In late March and April, Pew's Global Attitudes Project polled residents of 24 countries regarding a variety of attitudes. In 14 of those countries, majorities expressed favorable opinions about Americans as people, although the United States itself was as well regarded in only nine.

Pew has conducted the survey annually since 2001 in a varying selection of countries, but this year, D'Vera Cohn, a senior writer at Pew Research Center, decided to compare those findings to data in the Department of Commerce's annual survey of which foreign nations Americans visit. These numbers are based on information primarily supplied by the airlines and other tourism entities about travel in 2007, when we took 64.1 million trips abroad. For comparison, that same year the United States hosted about 56 million foreign visitors.

In general, the comparison revealed a high correlation. The countries U.S. residents visit most frequently, perhaps not surprisingly, also tend to be the countries that hold us in high regard.

Of the top 10 most popular destinations for Americans, Canada ranked second in terms of visitation (17.15 million by both land and air) and also showed the highest level of favorable response, with 76 percent. After our northern neighbor, we are most popular in the United Kingdom (70 percent favorable -- No. 3 in visitation), Japan (65 percent favorable -- No. 7 in visitation), France (64 percent favorable -- No. 5 in visitation), Italy (62 percent favorable -- No. 4 in visitation) and Germany (55 percent favorable -- No. 6 in visitation).

But there are exceptions. In Mexico, the most visited destination by Americans for many years (25.5 million in 2007 by both land and air), only 44 percent of the residents rated us favorably, while 46 percent rated us unfavorably. (Presumably, the other 10 percent had no opinion.)

And in the countries that round out the top 10 for visitation, our approval ratings were even lower: China, which at No. 9 with 1.4 million Americans, scored us at 38 percent, and Spain, with 1 million travelers, at 40 percent. (Jamaica, No. 8 on the Department of Commerce visitation list, has not been included in the Pew attitude survey.)

Other countries Pew surveyed this year where the majority of the population hold favorable views of Americans include South Korea (77 percent), Lebanon (74 percent), Poland (70 percent), Tanzania (69 percent), Australia (66 percent), South Africa (64 percent), India (63 percent), Nigeria (62 percent), Russia (57 percent) and Brazil (51 percent).

On the flip side, those countries in the Pew survey with the least favorable ratings of Americans included Indonesia (45 percent), Jordan (36 percent), Egypt (31 percent), Argentina (24 percent), Pakistan (20 percent) and Turkey (13 percent).

According to Ms. Cohn, "It's always good to know before you go." She called the attitude surveys statistically valid, based on sampling hundreds of people in the various countries with a margin of error of 3 percent to 4 percent. "That's a smaller margin than for political polls in this country."

She noted that while attitudes do change over time and making predictions about future preferences is difficult, trends can be discerned from previous surveys. For example, between 2006 and 2007, the percentage of favorable views of Americans fell 10 percent in Japan and 8 percent in Mexico, while Brazil rose 6 percent and both India and Lebanon 5 percent.

"Although we didn't include the information in this report," Ms. Cohn explained, "Most of those polled expressed the opinion that U.S. policies would improve no matter which presidential candidate wins the election."

Still, it's not wise to pick a place to visit or to avoid a country in which you have a particular interest based entirely on these figures. It's also generally reasonable to assume that, especially considering the general slowdown in American travel this summer, places where people earn their livelihood by accommodating visitors will welcome you with open arms.

Finally, there's no guarantee you'll have a better experience if you vacation in this country. The Pew Survey also polled Americans about their views of themselves. Although 88 percent expressed very or somewhat favorable views of their fellow countrymen, 9 percent turned their thumbs down.

So when planning that domestic vacation, you might logically expect that every 10th person you encounter probably wishes you had stayed at home.