Sydney: a city as unwelcoming as its housing market

SORRY Sydney, the glory days of being one of the hottest travel destinations in the world are officially over, Kerry Parnell writes, and we’ve got our taxi drivers to blame.

WELCOME to Sydney… or not.

The Harbour City might have the looks, but it turns out tourists are not feeling the love.

According to a new report, Sydney ranks a lamentable 55th out of 100 of the “most welcoming cities in the world”. It’s one point higher than Jakarta. And 15 places lower than Kuwait City, that well-known holiday hotspot.

Melbourne fared even worse, coming in at 68 and Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth didn’t even make the list.

The rating was compiled by TravelBird, which analysed the world’s top 500 tourist destinations and ranked them on their port of entry, safety, happiness of residents, proficiency in English, openness to tourists and over-tourism.

Admittedly your first impression at Kingsford Smith Airport could be better; when you climb into a cab and give the driver your hotel name, only to discover he doesn’t know where it is. Sydney cabs are as far from London black cabs or New York yellow cabs you could get. In London the driver has studied for years to get his license. In Sydney, he started work that morning and didn’t even have time for a shower, let alone a look at a map.

When I moved to Sydney many years ago I gave my taxi driver the address of my accommodation and he was really angry I didn’t know the way. “But I’ve just arrived,” I said as he hurled a street map at me and told me to look it up.

Things improved with the advent of sat nav, although you’ll still have to direct your driver to the Opera House. One friend even had to spell it.

When your cabbie has to look up this address, you’ve got problems. (Pic: supplied.)

As for “proficiency in English”, that’s a fair dinkum cop out, seeing as Shanghai is number 44, and Glasgow 31. No offence to Glaswegians, but let’s just say I dated one once and never did catch his name.

I know holiday-makers, particularly Americans, might need a phrasebook when it comes to Strine — where you put your thongs can cause confusion and Brits will be appalled if you tell them they’re full of spunk, but it’s not like the signs are in Japanese, which they are (obviously) in Tokyo, which comes seventh.

As for safety, as long as nobody mentions Wolf Creek, it’s fine. And in regards to the happiness of residents, Sydneysiders are lovely, as long as they don’t get behind the wheel of a car, or talk about house prices.

They’re also accommodating to visitors — kindly packing everyone into designated tourist spots like Darling Harbour with its restaurants serving rubbery kangaroo for an authentic Aussie experience. Or Circular Quay, where bewildered cruise ship passengers mill around for hours failing to find the access to the Harbour Bridge, while the rest of the residents stay unbothered in their beautiful suburbs only reachable by bus.

Singapore came first, which is understandable: It’s so perfect, it’s enough to make you spit out your chewing gum in shock. But I wouldn’t.

So efficient is the city, if a numpty leaves her family’s passports in the back of a cab, airline officials will track down the taxi driver within minutes. If you did this in Sydney, those passports would be gone forever, because even if you found the taxi driver, he’d get lost on the way back.