BRITS abroad can be overbearing, arrogant and obsessed with time-keeping, a government-backed guide says. And their attitude, particularly in developing countries, can give them a bad name and cause offence to local people.

According to the Rough Guide to a Better World, they should leave their watches, their personal organisers, and their attitude, at home and switch to “mañana mode”.

The guide, which is aimed primarily at gap-year travellers, is also “for anybody else who wants to make a difference to the developing world”, according to Gareth Thomas, a minister at the Department for International Development, which put up £1 million for it.

It suggests: “Realise that the people in the country you are visiting often have different time concepts and thought patterns from your own. This does not make them inferior, only different.”

Reflecting growing concerns that some British travellers regarded their ability to bargain down the price of a taxi ride in the developing world to the equivalent of a few pence as a badge of honour, the guide says they should “haggle with humour and without aggression. Pay what something is worth to you and remember how wealthy you are compared to local people.”

It adds that travellers who attempt to “speak a few words of the local language” will be likely to get a warmer welcome.

The book also advises Britons to use scarce water supplies sparingly, to consume locally produced food and drink and not to buy products made from endangered species — a recognition of the mounting concern that the sheer numbers of travellers to the developing world now risk destroying the cultures and environments that they travel so far to see.

Ancient artefacts, which the guide says will probably be stolen property, should also not be bought as mementos; local people should not be photographed without permission; and travellers should “dress appropriately”.

The book, which will be available free to the public, is an attempt to end British ignorance of the developing world at a time when the creeping glob- alisation of trade is bringing its four corners ever closer.

As well as providing travel advice, it informs Britons at home how they can help the fight against world poverty: by buying fairtrade goods, doing voluntary work overseas and by becoming “activists” with British-based aid organisations. A controversial section on activism exhorts readers to lobby high street retailers to ensure that they take responsibility for the treatment of the overseas workers producing their goods.

In a blunt and politically charged foreword to the book, the musician and campaigner Bob Gedolf calls for sensitivity to the populations of the developing world. “They whisper to us through the unfair trade of the supermarket shelves, and the exploited raw materials in our petrol stations, the occasional prurient newspaper story or through the piety of the political speech or the feelgood pop concert,” he states.

Mr Thomas said that as trade and production became increasingly global, it was increasingly important for Britons to understand the key global considerations, of sustainable development, interdependence and social justice.

Two million copies of the guide will be available from November 29.

TRAVEL TIPS

• Adapt to local cultures and accept that countries have “different concepts of time”
• Respect local manners, particularly in holy places
• Ask permission to photograph local people
• Dress appropriately
• Read up on the places you visit and learn a few words of the language
• Haggle with humour, not aggression
• Buy local products and stay in locally owned accommodation
• Use water sparingly — it is probably precious
• Don’t buy products made from endangered species or ancient artefacts
• Ask questions, rather than assume you have all the answers
• Use public transport
• Pack small items from home to offer as gifts
• Don’t drop litter

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