Tips For Touts

Touts are people who annoyingly “tout” (sell) products or services. Many touts, particularly tuk-tuk and taxi drivers, have incredible knowledge of the local area. Nearly all touts are cultural experts from having lived their entire lives within miles of where they work. Most touts have something valuable to offer tourists. Being approached by literally over a hundred touts per day, however, can drain a traveler’s energy and time, turning an incredible vacation into frustrating work. Over my 8 months or so of travel during the past year, I have tried numerous techniques on thousands of touts. Here are my best field tested techniques in getting rid of touts quickly, effortlessly, and moving on with your day:

1.Ignore them! At first blush, this seems incredibly simplistic, and that’s exactly why it works. Imagine if you try to initiate an interaction with someone and that person completely ignores you. After a few seconds, you’d probably turn away out of social embarrassment.

2. Say “HELLO!” then ignore them. For some of us, completely ignoring anyone, even a pushy tout, can seem rude. I had to read in a guidebook sometime that it’s okay to ignore touts, that it isn’t considered rude, at least not any ruder than them annoyingly trying to get your business. At other times, there are social settings where it would be rude to ignore a tout. For instance, it would be rude to not return a greeting in the morning, leaving the hotel, and seeing a single tuk-tuk driver who smiles and says “Good morning!” Regardless of your situation or personal need to acknowledge individuals no matter what the circumstances, a solid greeting while continuing to walk away works.

2a. As a side experiment this past month, I’ve been very successful in greeting touts using my sunniest, loudest voice. If they wave me over to them, greet me, or in any way try to start an interaction, I simply say “HELLO!” or “GOOD MORNING!” while continuing ahead, and nearly every time that ends the interaction. I’m not sure why this works, but I think it must have to do with establishing dominance. It catches them off guard, as they are used to controlling interactions with potential customers, and they are stunned into inaction, not knowing what to say next. I continue on my merry way, happily knowing that I am the friendliest, most outgoing, best tout-evading tourist in town.

3. Say “No thanks” then ignore. If it feels awkward to ignore a tout and you’ve already greeted him, yet he persists in getting your business, the next best step is to tell him you’re not interested. “No thanks!” is about as clear as it gets. Ignoring a tout should then be much easier because you’ve established your intentions, and should feel secure knowing that any further pursuit by the tout really is rude.

4. Keep walking. This technique compliments all the rest, but I itemize it here for emphasis. I’ve had touts “chase” me for over a block, but eventually they give up when they realize how far away they’ve moved. You can keep talking to them or ignoring them if they follow along. The idea, though, is to keep moving on with your day…Don’t let a tout eat up your time and energy by stopping to have a 10 minute chat about why you can’t buy his t-shirts, or why you aren’t interested in her massage. If you think about it, when you engage a tout, knowing full well you won’t be buying, you are being rude for wasting his time!

5. Keep talking. If you enter an interaction with a tout knowing that you won’t buy anything and making it clear to him from the get go that you won’t buy anything, then it clears the air for some enlightening conversation. You might have fun asking about local sights and customs, or maybe timing the conversation to see how long you can keep the conversation going before he tries to get away! Most likely a tout will think you’re interested in buying something if you hang around and he’ll throw in a sales pitch from time to time. Repeat your initial stance that you have no desire to buy anything, then the air is cleared again for you to continue leading the conversation.

6. Never, ever let them touch you. If there’s one thing I won’t tolerate, it’s strangers, particularly touts, touching me to get or keep my attention. “DON’T TOUCH!” is a phrase I use when this happens (maybe once every few days). It is very effective, mostly because I abruptly recoil, take a somewhat aggressive stance and say it meanly. Every time, the interaction dies. Here’s my philosophy on this: Touch is a clear, if subconscious, way of establishing dominance and compliance over another person. If you immediately counter it, then you now have the upper hand and control the interaction. By re-engaging a tout after she grabs your arm or even taps your hand, you are being manipulated. It becomes more and more difficult to ignore or walk away from a tout from that point on. Additionally, most pick pocket techniques involve touching to misdirect—you’ll feel a pinch on the shoulder while the pickpocket’s other hand is stealthly grabbing your wallet. Bottom line: Never ever let a tout touch without giving him some social punishment.

Touts are people trying to earn a living, raising families, and doing what they know works best. The highest earning touts are probably the most aggressive, which is why they continue to be that way. I want you to take from this article, that you can use some simple social techniques to save yourself time and energy fending off the dozens and dozens of touts you’ll face daily in 3rd world countries. Don’t let yourself become completely numb to them as people, however, because you’ll deprive yourself of some very interesting stories!

Some of my best experiences have been because of touts. In Vietnam, I offered a woman (selling handicrafts) a ride to her home on my motorbike rental. She also happened to have a baby bundled to her and a 2-3 hour walk ahead. When I dropped her off she invited me for dinner with the whole family. It was delicious! In Sri Lanka this week, I was telling a tuk-tuk driver of the difficult I had in experiencing the food. To make a long story short, the next day he picked me up at my hotel and took me to his house where his wife had prepared a whole assortment of Sri Lankan dishes!

What techniques do you use for dealing with pushy touts or salesmen? Have you had any interesting experiences with touts, good or bad?