Tourism officials have issued a detailed 64-page guidebook to steer holidaymakers through the etiquette hazards of an overseas trip, after a senior Chinese leader warned that "uncivilised behaviour" abroad was damaging the country's reputation.

The handbook was issued to coincide with one of the busiest travel weeks of the year. Its advice ranges from the legally sound and eminently sensible – no subway fare-dodging, for example – to the unnecessarily alarmist or plain baffling. A woman wandering the streets of Spain without a pair of earrings will be laughed at as if she were undressed in public, it warns; another section specifies that visitors to Scotland should refrain from buying souvenirs made of stones.

Other points include not demanding pork in Muslim countries, avoiding picking your nose and teeth in public, and not leaving footprints on toilet seats – reflecting the fact that some tourists are more used to squat toilets.