Tourist hot spots in cities with the highest murder rates

Abstract

Social networks have facilitated access to the spatial location of user-generated images and this has permitted studies of the spatial distribution of tourist images. To date, however, most studies have tended to focus on European or North American cities. The current research focuses on an analysis of the behaviour of tourists in cities with other social, economic and cultural contexts. To be more precise, we analyse the cities of Los Cabos, Acapulco, Tijuana and La Paz (Mexico) and Natal and Fortaleza (Brazil). These cities share the condition of being both tourist hot spots and some of the cities with the highest murder rates in the world. The main objective of this work is to analyse the spatial concentration of images taken by tourists in contexts that have hitherto received little analysis in academic literature. The results show a clear spatial concentration of user-generated images, especially around the spaces that offer the highest levels of safety.

This work was supported by the Spanish National Plan CSO2015-64643-R and by the Generalitat de Catalunya’s (2017SGR145). Travel to Fortaleza was made possible thanks to funding from the 2017 Santander Iberoamérica Research Grants.