Citation

Venditto J, Mouzos J. Trends Iss. Crime Crim. Justice 2006; 316.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2006, Australian Institute of Criminology)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

During the past few years, the reporting of the murder of three overseas visitors in South Australia, Queensland, and the Northern Territory has generated immense public interest in Australia and considerable interest in their home nations of Japan and the United Kingdom. The main focus of the media has been on issues of the personal safety or security of intending visitors, and whether Australia is a safe place to visit.


During 2005, there were 5.5 million visitor arrivals to Australia, a five percent increase over the previous year (Tourism Australia 2006). Despite some media headlines labelling Australia as an unsafe place to visit, this paper provides factual information indicating that the risk of homicide victimisation faced by tourists who visit Australia is extremely low. Between 1994 and 2003, the murder rate of tourists was 0.9 per million short-term visitors to Australia. In the most recent year for which data are available there were only two tourists murdered. Those most likely to be victims of homicide are young males, which reflects the general profile of homicides in Australia more broadly. This paper focuses on the most serious of violent crimes – homicide – and although it demonstrates that the risk of victimisation is extremely low for visitors to Australia, further work on other violent crimes such as assault and robbery would be informative.