Safer tourist destinations: tourists’ perceptions of crime, political unrest and COVID-19 as affecting their travel choices

While risk of crime and perceptions of safety have been regularly addressed by criminologists, this has rarely extended to asking how those considering or taking vacations perceive their security. In contrast, tourism researchers regularly focus on perceptions of safety, but define this more broadly. This paper melds the two disciplines by considering which destinations UK residents perceived as unsafe and why. The research used a crowdsourcing platform to collect citizens’ perceptions of safety with regard to crime, terrorism/political disorder and health problems at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. The findings suggest that health problems were seen as the greatest risk. Mexico, Egypt and the USA were seen as the most risky country to visit overall, but in many respects UK respondents’ perceptions of safe destinations differed subtly from their US counterparts questioned in a parallel survey. Variations in perceptions of safety between subgroups of respondents were greatest for crime, again contrasting with the US findings. Nevertheless, the findings suggest that fear of crime is associated with features of everyday life that are less relevant to tourism destinations than for citizens’ routine lifestyles.