Tourism, Leisure, and Crime

Abstract

Tourism has become a leading sector of the worldwide economy; nighttime leisure activities claim an increasingly large sector of commercial areas. Cities once organized around industry have become centers of sport, recreation, and leisure. Researchers in areas of hospitality management have pointed to 'the tourism cycle' in explaining trends in crime: As particular places rise and fall as tourist destinations, they attract particular kinds of criminality and victimization. In this chapter, the relationship between tourism, leisure, and crime is examined in light of new crime risks evolving within a rapidly changing tourism environment - risks that have implications for crime prevention for governments, criminal justice systems, the tourism industry, and individual travelers.