Sun, sea, sand – and rape

There was a time when foreign visitors to Greece and Turkey made straight for temples, mosques and ancient cities. These days they are more interested in beaches, bars and nightclubs. The change can be summed up by the response of an American basketball star who looked puzzled when he was asked, on arriving home from Athens, whether he had visited the Parthenon. "I can't remember the names of all the clubs we went to," he told reporters regretfully.

I am not suggesting that every visitor to Greece should share my interest in ancient monuments. But it would be nice to think that they might display a fleeting interest in Greek culture, instead of viewing it solely as a place to get drunk and have sex in a hot climate. Boorish conduct by British tourists in Greece is now so common that the Foreign Office has issued official advice that "indecent behaviour, including mooning", will not be tolerated by the local police.

Another warning issued by the Foreign Office – that British women travelling around Greece should consider wearing a wedding ring to avoid harassment – confirms a darker side to the problem. Four British women have been raped on Rhodes this year and there were 11 reported rapes on the island in 2001, including five British women. All the assailants were caught and jailed, but a British tourist accused of rape was released in June after his alleged victim could not face going to court.

Now it has been revealed that police in Corfu are investigating the rapes of five British women and an Irish woman, all of them aged between 18 and 21, in the last seven weeks. The island has more than 400,000 foreign visitors each year, but the revelation of what one British newspaper called "Corfu's secret list of rape victims" has caused alarm. The authorities admit that 44 British women have been verified as rape victims since 1994, but say the real figure is probably much higher.

Corfu is popular with inexperienced travellers, attracted by the cheap food and alcohol available in bars. The Foreign Office has had to remind British women that they should maintain "at least the same level of personal security awareness" as in the UK and advise them not to accept lifts from strangers or passing acquaintances – advice which is as surprising, in its own way, as the warning about the consequences of mooning and other offensive behaviour.

Local tourist industries foster the illusion that their resorts are a sunny outpost of the UK, offering pizza, lager and chicken and chips to a booming soundtrack of English and American pop music. But these are not, it must be said, manifestations of indigenous culture. Most of Greece is socially conservative while Turkey's population is mainly Muslim; in rural areas, not far from tourist beaches on the Aegean coast, it is not unusual to see women wearing the traditional headscarf. This is not to condone assaults on tourists, but behaviour that is acceptable in a London nightclub could easily be misinterpreted by local men – or by other Brits in a state of advanced inebriation.

There have also been regular reports of visitors to more adventurous destinations falling victim to ghastly accidents. An 18-year-old girl from north London was killed in a crocodile attack in a lake on the border between Kenya and Tanzania earlier this year, and another British visitor died in similar circumstances in Borneo a month later. These cases are a tragic waste of life but they also, like the spate of sexual assaults on British tourists in Greece and Turkey, suggest that something has gone wrong with our attitude to foreign travel.

I don't want to go back to the bad old days when the British viewed other countries with automatic distrust. But a worrying proportion of the population seems to have evolved from a state of suspicion of "abroad" to a cheerful disregard for local customs and an inability to evaluate risk. The explanation may be over-confidence or – more likely, I suspect, in the case of the annual tourist invasion of Greece and Turkey – a degree of ignorance that verges on xenophobia. Either way, it is not surprising that the British have a terrible reputation in some parts of the world. Which other nationality has had to be warned by its own government that baring your bum in public is not an integral part of the foreign holiday experience?