Tourists’ views on safety and vulnerability. A study of some selected towns in Ghana Kwaku Adutwum Boakye Department of Hospitality and Tourism Management, University of Cape Coast, Cape Coast, Ghana article info Article history: Received 27 May 2010 Accepted 23 March 2011 Keywords: Ghana Safety Security Vulnerability Tourists Perceptions abstract Providing security for tourists has become an imperative and any destination which ignores this responsibility stands to lose out on the keen competition for the tourist dollar. One way to provide security for tourists is to seek their own views on such matters. Studies which seek to do such are relatively underrepresented in the literature. Using the accidental sampling method and questionnaires, this paper sought primarily to understand tourists’ perspectives on issues concerning safety and security in Ghana. It was observed that tourists felt most unsafe at attraction sites as compared to accommodation and in open spaces, and, rather interestingly, it emerged that they do not necessarily equate security to the presence of uniformed personnel but rather conceptualize it within the triple framework of space, order and professionalism. It was also observed that the fear of crime/vulnerability varies significantly across important socio-demographic variables (especially age). Ó 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Security is, perhaps, the single most important determinant of a destination’s allure (Sonmez & Graefe, 1998). Hence, all destinations strive to present themselves as paradises. However, the painful reality is that tourists fall victim to crimes on a daily basis (Holcomb & Pizam, 2006) and there are varying propensities for diverse crimes to happen to different types of tourists within the same geographical space (Boakye, 2008). The tourist has been found to be particularly prone to crime (Chesney-Lind & Lind, 1986; Mawby, Barclay, & Jones, 2010) and the reasons for this trend have included their appearance (Chesney- Lind & Lind, 1986); behaviour and language barriers (Allen, 1999); the type of environment (Crotts, 1996; Hall, 1992; Michalko, 2003); and travel behaviour (Boakye, 2009). Furthermore, the definitional criteria for distinguishing tourists from other travellers also provide some insight into the almost routine vulnerability of this group of travellers (Boakye, 2010). For example, as per the standard definition (Gee, Choy, & Mackens, 1989; Mathieson & Wall, 1982), an individual cannot qualify to be a tourist unless they leave their normal place of residence for a period of more than one day. Such a criterion naturally increases the potential of vulnerability because the tourist is likely to encounter unfamiliar settings and has to rely on relatively unknown people for services such as accommodation and food and beverage. Tourist victimisation is generally operationalised along two broad categories: violent and non-violent crimes. These manifest in a range of forms such as economic (arbitrary price increases, swindling, fraud) or physical (property crimes, bodily harm, murder, rape, harassment, etc) or psychological (George, 2003). Crime and victimization almost appear to be some kinds of ‘necessary evils’ attached to the tourism development process and present formidable challenges for destina- tions which seek to earn income from the enterprise. Prideaux’s (1996) proposition about the direct relationship between increasing numbers of tourists and the incidence of crime, describes a ‘vicious cycle’ of sorts where appealing destinations attract increasing number of tourists but with this influx comes greater opportunities for crimes and a higher probability of the once appealing destination to lose its allure due to the high crime rate. The continued risk associated with travel and tourism has made security take centre stage in many a discourse on tourism. The reason is not hard to fathom because instances of inse- curity have been found to cause a dent in destination image with direct economic losses (e.g. Bar-On 1996; Bloom, 1996; Holcomb & Pizam, 2006; Scheibler, Crotts, & Hollinger, 1996). To this end, many popular destinations have established specialised tourism police units. Though issues of tourism safety and security have been studied from a very wide range of perspectives, there appears to be rather modest infor- mation on how the tourists perceive their own security at a destina- tion. With a few notable exceptions (Brunt, Mawby, & Hambly, 1997; Demos, 1992; Ferreira & Harmse, 2000; George, 2003, Holcomb & Pizam, 2006), not much attention has been devoted to under- standing the tourists’ perspectives of vulnerability especially in a typical African destination. Subsequently, this paper primarily seeks to explore tourists’ perceptions of vulnerability while in Ghana. It proceeds against the backdrop that African destinations are generally E-mail address: adutwumboakye@yahoo.com. Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Tourism Management journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/tourman 0261-5177/$ e see front matter Ó 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.tourman.2011.03.013 Tourism Management 33 (2012) 327e333