Asian tourists’ lack of toilet etiquette leaves Swiss railway fuming

London, June 5

Fed up with having to clean up messy public toilets all the time, a Swiss railway company has come up with a series of graphic illustrations for visitors from Asia and the Middle East to instruct them how to sit on a toilet seat.

Pictograms on trains in the popular tourist destination of Mount Rigi in the Swiss Alps instruct users to sit on toilet seats rather than to squat on them and to discard used toilet paper in the lavatory and not in the waste bin.

"It happens that guests mount the toilet seats to do their business — and sometimes they don't know where to put the toilet paper," said Roger Joss, director of marketing for the Mount Rigi railway at Lake Lucerne in central Switzerland.

The Swiss tourist board has also accused foreign tourists of defecating in the shower.

"Tourists from the Gulf region or Asian countries are not very aware of our way of living. It's happened that people relieve themselves in the shower rather than in the toilet," Marcel Furer, head of the regional tourist office, was quoted as saying by the Daily Express.

Switzerland, which is famous for its cleanliness, is doing its best to teach new visitors Western toilet etiquette.

Switzerland is not the only country cracking down on the issue.

In March last year, Lloyds Bank's Old Broad Street office in central London also put up instructions telling foreign staff how to use the loo, with details such as 'sit on the toilet - do not stand on it', and 'please flush it with your hand and not your foot'. — PTI