Abstract
Tourist scams exist in many countries and are a subset of the long standing research area concerned with crimes against tourists. In this paper it is suggested that a defining feature of the tourist scam is the initial involvement of the tourist in the activity either through their gullibility or personal desire for an unusual or easy gain. This paper locates tourist scams in the literature on crimes against tourists and reviews work on scams in order to develop a category scheme portraying these encounters. Data collected in Thailand provide examples of scams to underpin the construction of a scheme which identifies tourist service scams, general retail scams and social interaction scams. The attribution of responsibility literature is used to interpret how scam victims are seen. A role for international comparative studies is suggested to better explain and potentially limit scam practices.
Highlights
A tourist scam for the purposes of this research will be defined as essentially fraudulent practice intended to gain financial advantage from a tourist where that targeted individual is initially a willing participant (Pearce, 2011)
An important question to be raised in the context of the coding scheme is to what extent were there instances which did not fit readily into this three part category. This question prompts the further query of how likely is it that the categories derived from this study built on international tourism in Thailand apply to other settings, countries and continents? One set of tourists’ blogs not incorporated into the coding scheme consisted of the identification of false advertising
The scenarios identified in this study of tourist scams represent a comprehensive collection of episodes likely to trouble tourists
Summary
A tourist scam for the purposes of this research will be defined as essentially fraudulent practice intended to gain financial advantage from a tourist where that targeted individual is initially a willing participant (Pearce, 2011). The aim of this research is to provide an understanding of the situations and principles which underlie tourist scams. This task is approached through several steps. The studies on tourist scams will be set in the context of existing work concerned with crimes against tourists. The issue of responsibility will be considered as a special concern in the area of tourist scams. It follows from the organising definition already cited that scams are possible because tourists, like many other individuals, are initially at least partly to blame for the trouble in which they find themselves. The psychological work on attribution theory which deals with puzzling or ambiguous conduct will be used as the major conceptual and theoretical tool to develop the fuller understanding of the evolution of tourist scams and, potentially, ways to avoid them
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