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Off to Barcelona in the summer? Make sure to pick a proper travel agent. Taking a trip to London? Watch out for fake car rentals.
The risk of being scammed at popular tourism spots jumps by 28% during peak seasons.
Some examples are fake destination photos, broken confirmation links and bogus deals.
Travel agencies seem to be the places most at risk, with scam rates “four times higher than the global average,” according to a new report by the Mastercard Economics Institute.
Fraudsters often establish fake tourism companies, attracting customers with juicy offers for excursions, guided tours or supposedly exclusive experiences, while offering unusually low prices.
Once the transaction is processed, these tours either never take place or differ entirely from expectations.
Risk of scams highest in Cancun, Hanoi, Dhaka and Bangkok
The report compared around twenty different cities to establish where the risk is highest.
In general, tourists reported the lowest travel-related frauds in San Francisco, Dublin, Seoul, Budapest and Edinburgh, while the highest rates were reported in Cancun, Hanoi, Dhaka and Bangkok.
So, how are tourists most likely to fall into a trap in these places?
Travel-agency related frauds are the most likely in Hong Kong (70%), Delhi (64%), Barcelona (64%) and Cancun (48%).
Taxi fraud: Jakarta, Bangkok, Istanbul and London top the list
Taxi and car rentals aren’t immune either: Tourists may pay for a service that never materialises after booking, or overpay due to hidden fees, inflated prices or rigged taximeters.
Jakarta (66%) has the highest taxi fraud rate across all cities analysed, followed by Bangkok (48%), Istanbul (39%) and London (34%).
Food scams also pose problems, such as meals that never arrive, or being overcharged at a restaurant through high service fees.
That is particularly true in American cities like LA and New York, where food scams represent respectively 75% and 63% of the total.
Accommodation: High risk in Thailand and Turkey
At the same time, in fraudsters in the accommodation sector may use holiday rental platforms or travel websites to create fake listings and lead tourists to book non-existent properties, or ones that greatly differ from the descriptions advertised.
Tourists headed to Phuket in Thailand and Antalya in Turkey should be particularly wary, as accommodation scam rates there represent 39% and 35% of the total, respectively.
‘Digital wallets are helping improve consumer protection’
Looking on the bright side, booking flights and trains remains relatively safe across all surveyed cities, with scam rates generally staying below 10%.
However, travellers are at risk of fraud well before they leave home. An analysis of aggregate transaction data shows that in 2024, fraud linked to early trip planning rose by over 12% compared to the previous year.
“Fake travel agency websites and excursions that closely resemble genuine services can make it harder for consumers to spot red flags”, Mastercard’s Executive VP Services Europe Michele Centenaro tells Euronews.
He adds that the company aims to eliminate manual card entry by 2030 to boost security: “Digital wallets, protected by tokenisation and advanced AI-driven fraud prevention tools are improving consumer protection”.
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