Tourism, Security and Safety From Theory to Practice

Results
Respondent’s Profile
Of a total sample of 1,017 respondents, 215 were found to have either experienced
personal theft or knew of someone who had. Of these 215 respondents, 69 or 32%
had experienced personal theft while traveling and 146 or 68% had known of
someone who had experienced personal theft while traveling. Fifty-three percent
of the respondents were male and 47% were female.
A large majority of the respondents (68%) were under the age of 49. Of those
who personally experienced theft while traveling, 73% of the respondents were
under the age of 49 and only 4.5% over the age of 65. Of those who knew of a
friend or relative who had experienced theft, 65% were under the age of 49, and
15% were over the age of 65.
As far as household income is concerned, 51% of the respondents had a house-
hold income larger than $50,000 per year.
The majority of the respondents or their friends/family who incurred theft
(69%) were traveling with friends, family, or significant others when the theft
occurred, while 23% were traveling alone.
Length of Time Since Thefts Occurred
More than three quarters of the respondents (78%) indicated that the crimes
addressed in the survey occurred less than 5 years ago. Only 5% indicated that the
thefts occurred between 5 and 10 years ago.
Location of Thefts
As can be seen from Table 1, the most prevalent locations indicated by the study
respondents were “in a vehicle” and “in a hotel” with 25.1% and 25.7% of the
responses, respectively. Of the specific answers to this question (N = 181) 76.4%
Does Theft Affect Tourist Destination Decisions?
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of the responses indicated that the theft did not occur off the victim’s person (i.e.,
the items were not stolen from somewhere on their body).