Countries most & least welcoming to foreigners

I saw this on The Washington Post and wanted to share it for my fellow travelers out there who haven't seen it yet. I found it to be quite interesting:

"A surprising map of the countries that are most and least welcoming to foreigners"

{via}

The World Economic Forum conducted a survey in 140 countries and asked participants a the question: "How welcome are foreign visitors in your country?" This survey was done in late 2011 through late 2012. The WEF conducted the survey so that the results could help “measure the extent to which a country and society are open to tourism and foreign visitors.”

The survey found that the three countries least welcoming to foreign visitors are, in order: 

Bolivia

Venezuela

Russia

Other countries that ranked poorly in the survey include:

Iran

Pakistan

Saudi Arabia

China 

South Korea

The one country I found the most surprising to be on that list is South Korea. When my husband and I lived there, we didn't feel unwelcome not one time. I'm also surprised to see it ranked so poorly because there are a lot of foreigners there! I'm also bummed about Bolivia and Venezuela because I want to really see those places-- I mean, I'll probably end up going there at some point despite this survey, lol. I also noticed Ecuador is red on the map. My husband and I lived there as well and were fine.

The survey found the top three most welcoming countries to foreign visitors are, in order: 

Iceland

New Zealand

Morocco

Other high-ranking countries:

Ireland

Canada

Austria

Thailand

United Arab Emirates

Parts of West Africa

To read more about the survey, click here. The author of the article gives a lot of good and interesting insights about the trends on the map.

Do you have any insight or opinions or theories about this?