Americans are being advised to 'leave the fanny packs and baseball caps behind' so as not to draw attention to themselves while travelling overseas. While USA Today published a list of tips for 'blending in' in Europe ('soften your speech, avoid fast-food chains, take a raincheck on wearing clothes featuring the American flag'), American travel magazine Condé Nast Traveler went one step further, advising readers worried about encountering a hostile reaction abroad to pretend to be Canadian.
On the ski slopes of the French Alps last week it was good to see a group of Americans taking this advice to heart. They had dutifully discarded the baseball caps in favour of identical T-shirts emblazoned with the slogan 'F**k Bush!' on the front and 'Americans against the war' on the back. Very low-key. Whether this was a calculated ploy to get better service in their favourite French restaurant or a defiant political stand, blending in was obviously not top of the priority list.
The advice in the American media comes in response to a genuine concern by American tourists about their safety abroad. In a survey carried out by Condé Nast Traveler in February, 62 per cent of respondents were worried about being harmed because of their nationality. This is in spite of the fact that Americans are more than 1000 times more likely to be killed by heart disease or a gunshot wound at home, than by a terrorist attack abroad. The paranoia is fuelled by reports such as the one which ran this week in USA Today : 'From Spanish plazas to Parisian metros, American tourists are being quizzed, grilled and even spat on by people who do not approve of the Bush administration's drive for a war against Saddam Hussein.'
But, as the Americans' main allies in the war against Iraq, shouldn't British travellers be equally concerned about what kind of welcome they will receive abroad? Well, yes and no. Now is probably not the time to be sporting Union Jack bathing trunks and a Man Utd football shirt (though one could argue that there is never a right time for this). But then neither is it the time to don 'Sorry for being British' T-shirts or adopt a fake Aussie drawl or thick Irish brogue when quizzed about our nationality.
Tourists who do make the effort to visit so-called 'sensitive' destinations in times of trouble (assuming the Foreign Office is not advising against travel) can usually expect to be welcomed with open arms no matter where they come from. Countries such as Turkey, Morocco and Egypt are suffering badly from the downturn in tourism and are not likely to jeopardise one of their major sources of foreign income by upsetting valuable visitors, no matter what their personal beliefs. Dr Alan Ogilvie, who was in Egypt on holiday with Bales Worldwide when the war broke out, said: 'The people couldn't have been nicer. Everywhere we went they asked where we were from and when we said England, they said we were very welcome.'
At its best, travel is a wonderful force for promoting understanding between different cultures. If we allow a bunker mentality to take over, we all lose out.
