Killed while traveling - Trends in tourism-related mortality, injuries, and leading causes of tourist deaths from published English news reports, 2000-2017 (1H)

Save for a few studies from the medical literature, little is known about the frequency, causes, and long-term trends of tourist deaths and injuries. Our obliviousness to the phenomenon, however, seems less disturbing than the notion it suggests: A general disregard that leisure travel and mortality are co-occurring events and therefore worthy of investigation. Worse, the absence of solid facts surrounding tourist mortality is often obscured if not supplanted outright by inordinate media attention on or treatment of tragedies befalling tourists. To redress this state of inadequacy, this study relies on English news reports published between 2000 up to the first half of 2017 to estimate the frequency and long-term trends of tourist-related fatal and non-fatal incidents. Findings reveal tourist killings or deaths to be the most commonly occurring incidents, with the major cause of tourist mortality being road injuries and falls. Tourists dying from cardiovascular causes are also increasing. The study proffers an alternative method for tracking tourist mortality, injuries, and other traveler misfortunes, and weighs its efficacy for tourism safety planning and management. Finally, the study discusses the import of knowing how tourists die for theorizing the inexorable advance of tourism.