The travel industry is one of the areas that are considered “more vulnerable to fraud”. New research reveals the most common scams in some of the world’s top travel destinations.

Do you go to Barcelona in the summer? Make sure you have selected a suitable travel agency. Are you traveling to London? Take care of fake car rentals.

The risk of falling victim to fraud in popular tourist parts is increased by 28% during peak periods.

Some examples are fake destination photos, troubled confirmation links and fake offers.

Travel agencies seem to be the ones that are at greater risk, with fraud rates “four times higher than the global average”, according to a new Mastercard Economics Institute report.

Scammers often establish fake tourist companies, attracting customers with juicy excursions, guided tours or alleged exclusive experiences, while offering unusually low prices.

Once the transaction is handled, these excursions are either never done or completely different from expectations, Euronews notes.

Cities with the lowest and higher risk

The report compared about twenty different cities to find out where the highest risk is.

In general, tourists reported the lowest trips associated with travel to San Francisco, Dublin, Seoul, Budapest and Edinburgh, while the highest rates reported in Cancun, Hanoi, Dhaka and Bangkok.

So how is tourists more likely to fall into a trap in these places?

Travel offices -related scams are more likely in Hong Kong (70%), Delhi (64%), Barcelona (64%) and Cancun (48%).

Taxi scam

Taxis and car rentals are also not “invulnerable”: tourists can pay for a service that is never implemented after booking or pay too much due to hidden charges, swollen prices or tags.

Jakarta (66%) has the highest tax fraud in all cities analyzed, followed by Bangkok (48%), Constantinople (39%) and London (34%).

Food scams also cause problems, such as meals that never reach or over -indebted to a high -end restaurant.

This is especially true in US cities such as Los Angeles and New York, where food scams represent 75% and 63% of the total.

Scams in staying

At the same time, fraudsters in the field of accommodation may use holiday rental platforms or travel websites to create false entries and lead tourists to book in non -existent real estate or real estate that differ significantly from the descriptions advertised.

Tourists directed to Phuket of Thailand and Antalya, Turkey, should be very careful, as the rates of fraud in accommodation there account for 39% and 35% of the total, respectively.

Looking at the positive side, the reservation of flights and train remains relatively safe in all the cities involved in the research, with fraud rates generally below 10%.

However, travelers are at risk of fraud long before they leave their home. An analysis of aggregated transaction data shows that in 2024, the fraud associated with early travel planning increased by over 12% compared to the previous year.