TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - The Thai capital Bangkok and Vietnam's Hanoi, two of the most popular tourist destinations in Southeast Asia, have been listed as the top cities with higher levels of fraud, according to a new study by the Mastercard Economics Institute, as cited by CNBC. The two cities respectively ranked second and fourth, with Cancun in Mexico and Dhaka, Bangladesh taking the first and third positions.
According to the study, travel scams that occur in each city vary. In Bangkok, taxi services and car rentals accounted for 48 percent of reported scam cases. Both became the most common sources of scams targeting tourists, according to the report.
Many foreign visitors also reported being ripped off by food service providers.
Jakarta Highlighted
The types of scams reported in the cities also vary, as taxi and car rental scams only accounted for 2 percent of tourist scam cases in cities like Hong Kong and Barcelona, but reached 66 percent in Jakarta, according to the report.
Other reported scams in Jakarta are linked to food reservations, accommodations, and tour operators.
Mastercard noted that the travel industry is one of the most susceptible to fraud. Last year, there was an 18 percent growth in fraud during the peak summer season and 28 percent during the peak winter season. Fraud related to travel agent bookings and tour companies was over four times higher than the average fraud in other industries.
“Once paid, the tour may either never occur or be drastically different from what was promised,” according to the report.
According to Mastercard data, travelers reported the lowest fraud rates in San Francisco, the U.S.; Dublin, Ireland; Seoul, South Korea; Budapest, Hungary; and Edinburgh, Scotland.
Euromonitor International ranked Bangkok as the most visited city in the world in 2024, with a record of 32.4 million arrivals. Meanwhile, Hanoi received 6.35 million foreign tourists last year, a 34% increase from the previous year. The Vietnamese capital is targeting 30 million tourists this year, including seven million foreign tourists, according to VnExpress.
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