Tourist's perceptions of safety and security while visiting Cape Town

Abstract

Cape Town, a major tourist destination, has gained a reputation for being an unsafe place to go on holiday. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate whether tourists, who visited Cape Town in August and September 2001, felt safe while staying at and touring in the ‘Mother City’, and how they perceived safety and security in Cape Town. The findings, which were taken from a survey of 438 visitors to Cape Town, reveal that respondents had reasonably positive perceptions of safety and security, although they felt unsafe going out after dark and using the city's public transport. A number of personal factors, such as nationality and previous experience of crime, were also found to affect respondent's perceptions of safety and security. These findings are compared with several studies, which include empirical research conducted at other international tourist destinations, and the South African Tourism data on foreign visitor's perceptions of tourism facilities in the country. In light of the findings, it is recommended that the tourism industry and law enforcement agencies co-ordinate efforts to improve crime prevention measures in Cape Town.