Today vacationers view their holidays as an escape from the worlds problems and worries. While on a tour, the last thing they wan to be concerned about is being victims of crime. Tourists while at destinations can be lucrative targets to crime, the thematic slide explores how tour guides may convert unprevented security calamity into a tolerable inconvenience.

1. Tourist Security and the Role of the Tour Guide

2. Tourist Safety, Security & Health
• Types of Crime in Tourism
• Categories of Crime in Tourism
• Tourists as Targets to Crime
• Tourists as Victims by Own Decision
• Tour Guides Intervention

3. The topic discusses types of crimes
and possible tour guides interventions
Introduction to Tourism & Crime
• Tourism is a unique industry.
• It is the world’s largest industries and,
• The world’s least-protected industry.
• For most of history, travel was torturous as
travelers encountered robbers and kidnappers.
• Today vacationers view their trips as an escape
from the world’s problems and worries of
everyday life.
• While on tour, the last thing they want to be
concerned about is being victims of crime.

4. Crimes against tourists
Types of Crime in Tourism
• These are specific crimes that target visitors.
• From the criminal’s perspective, these
people have a parasitic business relationship
with the tourism industry.
• Without tourists, crime against tourists
cannot take place.
• The criminal in this case needs the tourism
industry to succeed.
Crimes against tourists have a direct relationship with the
tourism industry and without it, they cannot take place

5. Collateral Crimes
Types of Crime in Tourism…Ctd
• They are local crimes that have no relationship
with tourism.
• However, they spill-over into the tourism industry.
• The spill-over effect may be due to tourists being
in the wrong place at the wrong time, or
• The crime giving an impression that the locale is
unsafe thus discouraging its visitation.
Collateral crimes may have no direct relationship
with tourism but can impact on tourism
directly through tarnishing a destination’s image

6. Categories of Crime in Tourism
PAUL OLOLA paulolola@hotmail.com +(254) 0723 403 147
✓ Pickpocketing
✓ Robbery
✓ Assault
✓ Battery
✓ Drugging
✓ Mugging
✓ Rape
✓ Murder
✓ Kidnapping
• Crimes by Locals against Tourists
• Crimes by Tourists against other Tourists
CRIME
Against Tourists
✓ Cattle Rustling
✓ Civil Unrest
✓ Terrorism
✓ Tribal Violence
✓ Gang Violence
✓ Violent Protests
✓ Genocide
✓ Military Coups
✓ Drug Violence
• Crimes by Locals against other
Locals
Collateral Crime

7. Tourists provide a lucrative conspicuous
target to crime during tours because:
They often assume
where they are visiting is safe
Tourists as Soft-Targets to Crime
• Tourists often let down their guard or,
• Lower their level of inhibition at destinations.
• Since they are on a schedule, they often lower
their standards of security and safety.
• They mostly do this for the sake of staying
within a specific time frame.

8. They carry much portable wealth
Tourists as Soft-Targets to Crime…Ctd
• Visitors at anytime of a tour carry valuables in
the form of portable wealth.
• These may be in form of: digital cameras,
cellphones, jewelry and money.
• They are easy to detect and identify, and most
visitors carry them always.
• Their usage are frequent during a tour and thus
noticeable depending with their type of storage.
• These characteristics make criminals consider
visitors as a lucrative niche to target.

9. They are short staying & transient
Tourists as Soft-Targets to Crime…Ctd
• Visitors often have tours to multiple destinations
according to their tour itinerary.
• They may therefore not notice that they have lost
something of value.
• When they notice however, they may not have an
idea to whether the object was stolen or it is lost.
• This is by virtue that at any attraction they stay
briefly and at any given time they are on the move.
PAUL OLOLA paulolola@hotmail.com +(254) 0723 403 147

10. They are unfamiliar with crimogenic hotspots
Tourists as Soft-Targets to Crime…Ctd
• Visitors often lack proper details about the
destination and places they will pass on the
way to the final destination,
• They also lack proper details about the local
population.
• They may not be familiar with the local
customs, language, points of danger.
• Consequently, it is the visitor that is always at a
disadvantage in a confrontation with criminals.
PAUL OLOLA paulolola@hotmail.com +(254) 0723 403 147

11. They do not know what to do when
faced with difficult situations
Tourists as Soft-Targets to Crime…Ctd
• Tourists are often conspicuous in their new
settings and,
• They operate on unfamiliar political, cultural
and sometimes linguistic turf.
• They are often stripped of their cultural and
familiar ties and protective institutions.
In the event of a crime, a tourist will not know who to call,
where to turn to and how to respond to it in a destination

12. The ostentatious behavior of tourists
Tourists as Soft-Targets to Crime…Ctd
• Few locals think being poor is bad and being rich is
good.
• They do not know being a tourist does not
necessarily mean one is rich.
• Tourists involve in activities, events and live in
accommodation that locals subscribe for the “rich”.
• This tends to draw locals into crime against tourists
especially in poor destinations.
Classic literature describes this as “Robin Hood Syndrome”
of the “good guy” stealing from the rich to give the poor

13. They are less likely to report crimes
or return as witnesses
Tourists as Soft-Targets to Crime…Ctd
• Tourists are rarely willing to invest in the time
required to file a police report and,
• They are often unwilling to spend time and
money needed to return to the site to testify.
They lack professional travel knowledge
• Few travelers are professionals, but most
criminals are highly adept at what they do.
• In the competition between tourists and
criminals, criminals often have the advantage.

14. They often ignore caution
Tourists as Soft-Targets to Crime…Ctd
• Traveling is taking risks and,
• Travelers often take risks that they would not
take back at home.
• Caution on carrying a lot of portable wealth or,
• Leaving valuable un-catered for often go
unnoticed by visitors during a tour.
PAUL OLOLA paulolola@hotmail.com +(254) 0723 403 147

15. Tourists as Soft-Targets to Crime…Ctd
• Illicit or criminal activity: drug use
• Failing to respond to local customs.
• Engaging with prostitutes.
• Excessive consumption of alcohol.
• Carrying portable wealth in predictable places.
• Having desired items such as jewelry not kept
at hotel security safe boxes.
• Participating in activities where crime is high
such as nightclubs and nightlife.
However, in some instances, tourists become victims by
their own decision to pursue risky and illicit activities like:

16. Tourists as Soft-Targets to Crime…Ctd
• Are often in anomic state i.e. pay little attention
to where they leave their valuables.
• Travelling to areas of the locale to which they are
unfamiliar without company of a guide.
• Differentiation in dressing, use of foreign
language and or accent.
• Inattentive actions or carelessness culminating to
loss of personal effects, money, documents etc.
PAUL OLOLA paulolola@hotmail.com +(254) 0723 403 147

17. Tour Guide’s Intervention
“Safety & Security Brokers”
• Pre-Crime Interventions
• Post-Crime Interventions

18. Tour Guide’s Pre-Crime Intervention
• Offering adequate safety and security
information to tourists at outset of the tour for
them to be alert of their own security.
• Issuing visitor security tips at stops that may
range from warnings on dangerous spots of
petty crime hazards such as pickpocketing.
• Providing tourists information of attractions
prior to visitation to ensure they are appraised
of cultural sensitivities and the do’s and don’ts.
The guide has an active role to play among other
personnel accompanying tourists to ensure prevention of
security risks, these roles include the following:

19. • Intervening during hosts-guests interactions to
ensure minimal overindulgence and to control
the ensuing contacts.
• Close monitoring of the tour group’s movement,
maintaining a favorable pace that allows
accounting for each member.
• Avoiding dubious neighborhoods.
• Ensure tourist attractions of high visitor
concentration like malls, theatres and exhibitions
provide safety and security plans or precautions.
• These include emergency exit signs, fire
assembly points, emergency call lines etc.
Tour Guide’s Pre-Crime Intervention…Ctd

20. • Coordinate the day’s activities with attraction
guards or rangers, tourist police or authorities to
provide assistance and protection from theft and
harassment.
• Keep up-to-date with security information from
national tourism administration, regional and
local tourist offices, private tourist information
centers etc.
• These information covers issues on laws,
regulations and safe conduct that tourists need
to know in order to reduce security risks.
Tour Guide’s Pre-Crime Intervention…Ctd
PAUL OLOLA paulolola@hotmail.com +(254) 0723 403 147

21. Tour Guide’s Post-Crime Intervention
• When material loss occurs to tour member(s),
the guide’s knowledge on post-crime handling
can turn such a security calamity into a tolerable
inconvenience.
• Incase of damage to luggage or loss of property
in hotels or by other handlers, the tour guide
must report in order for any negligent handling
to be discovered and appropriate remedial
action taken.
The tour guide and other personnel accompanying
tourists impact largely on any unprevented security risk or
dilemma in the tour in the following ways:

22. • For tourists with travel insurance catering for loss
of and damage of baggage or material wealth,
• The tour guide’s action(s) and direction in
handling the matter can make the processes of
perusing a claim smooth and fast by,
• Ensuring timely report to authorities and proper
documentation such as police abstracts are
acquired on the right time.
• The tour guide may also serve or be called upon
as a witness in criminal proceedings to provide
testimony crucial for informed verdicts by courts.
Tour Guide’s Post-Crime Intervention…Ctd
PAUL OLOLA paulolola@hotmail.com +(254) 0723 403 147

23. • The occurrence and reoccurrence of crime
during the tour are recorded by the tour guide
on the daily and general tour reports to inform
future tour planning with emphasis on visitor
security.
Tour Guide’s Post-Crime Intervention…Ctd
PAUL OLOLA paulolola@hotmail.com +(254) 0723 403 147

24. 1) Outline four (4) types of health and safety
emergencies that may emanate from physical
and environmental risks during a hiking tour at
Mount Longonot National Park.
2) Explain four (4) causes of emergencies that may
arise from lack of preparation by visitors during
a tour.
3) Describe the steps that should be followed by a
tourist guide when handling emergencies that
he/she may not be familiar with.
Home Assignment
PAUL OLOLA paulolola@hotmail.com +(254) 0723 403 147

25. Tourist Safety & Health
[Next]
• Tourism Safety and Health Risks
• Handling Emergencies

26. Thank you for being meticulously responsible
Thematic Areas
• Tour Guiding and Interpretation
• Tourism and Travel Law
• Travel and Tour Operations
• Wildlife Tourism
• Sustainable Tourism
• Marketing for Travel and Tourism
• Social Media Marketing
Victory
Loves
Preparation
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Victory
Loves
Preparation