Are Americans the world's most annoying tourists? We won't argue; the Americans themselves believe they are.

According to a survey from LivingSocial, Americans dubbed themselves the world's worst travellers by a whopping 20 percent, overtaking the closest rivals, the Chinese, by 5 percent. The survey queried over 5,600 people in five countries and produced some interesting results.

For example, years of sharing summer holidays with our neighbours across the sea led Irish holidaymakers to deem the British the world's worst tourists, while unsurprisingly the British selected the Germans' and their towel-laden sunbeds as the biggest culprits.

In the largely US-centric survey it was also discovered that Americans take on average 16 days off work a year (compared to 28 days for the Irish) and that 40 percent of Americans admitted that they had stolen items - ranging from pillows to toiletries - from their hotels. No wonder they're the world's worst tourists.

The US might have some competition in the British, however, as the latter themselves the worst tourists in a similar poll from Skyscanner.net last year.

In last year's survey the Brits voted themselves worst among "not attempting to learn any local language" and also worst for "being drunk and disorderly". Men of Ireland, that sounds like they're throwing down a challenge...