Following the State Department’s multiple travel advisories, including warnings about violent crime risks in popular tourist destinations in the United States, a study by Spartacus Law Firm has compared crime statistics in the main U.S. tourist destinations to rank the tourist cities that are too dangerous.
The research released on Tuesday analysed U.S. metropolitan areas, checking how sharply tourism popularity overlaps with crime risk and highlighting the places that draw large numbers of overseas visitors yet expose them to above-average danger. The study took into account tourist popularity reflected in yearly overseas destinations and crime rate in each city, calculating the Tourist-Risk Score.
The U.S. tourist destination that is the most dangerous is Houston, Texas, with a tourist-risk score of 88.2, reflecting low safety, but a high number of tourists. It is the third most visited city on the list, with 887,000 overseas visitations each year, while the crime rates in Houston are quite high. Non-violent crimes are most common here, but the total crime rate in the city amounts to 2,656 per 100,000 residents.
Detroit, Michigan, ranks 2nd on the list of the most dangerous tourist destinations in the U.S., with a score of 84.3. The city has the highest crime rate in the top 10 at 2,941 per 100,000 residents, and each year the city is visited by 220,000 overseas tourists.
Denver, Colorado, takes third place, with a score of 82.9. The city sees a little more tourism than Detroit, with 286,000, but the overall crime rate is lower, with 2,710. Violent crimes are also rarer here, with a total of 3,482 cases.
Washington, DC., follows closely behind Denver with fourth place and a score of 81.1. The city is the second-most popular among overseas tourists, with 1.6 million visitors each year. At the same time, tourists are rarely aware that Washington has a lower safety and a crime rate of 2,125.
Seattle, Washington, is fifth in the ranking of the U.S. tourist destinations that are too dangerous, scoring 79.8. The city experiences fewer crimes on average than Denver or Houston, but the crime rate is still high, with 2,579 per 100,000 residents.
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, holds sixth place, getting a tourist-risk score of 79.7. The city has a popularity similar to Seattle among tourists, with 529,000 overseas visitors, only 50,000 less than in Seattle. The safety in Philadelphia for visiting tourists is low, with a total crime rate of 2,602.
In seventh place is Minneapolis, Minnesota, with a score of 79.1. The city has the second-smallest number of visitors in the ranking, with 167,000, while the crime rate in Minneapolis is the third highest, at 2,859, after Detroit and Portland.
Los Angeles, California, is eighth, scoring 78.9, almost 10 points below Houston. The city has the lowest crime rate in the top 10, with 1,966 per 100,000, the rate under 2,000. But Los Angeles is also the most visited city, and 3.6 million of tourists can still be affected by a low safety environment.
Dallas, Texas, takes ninth place, getting a score of 76.9. Over 655,000 tourists visit the city every year from overseas, over 230,000 less than Houston. For all these tourists, Dallas can still be a dangerous destination, with a crime rate of 2,078.
Portland, Oregon, closes the ranking of the tourist destinations in the U.S. that are too dangerous, with tenth place and a tourist-risk score of 76.7. It is the least visited city in the top 10, with 138,000 overseas tourists travelling to the city. Portland also has the second-highest crime rate in the list, closely following Detroit, with 2,897 crimes per 100,000 residents.
Commenting on the study, Chandon Alexander, CEO of Spartacus Law Firm, said: “American cities are grappling with a complex challenge where their most attractive tourist destinations often overlap with areas of heightened crime risk, creating safety concerns for both domestic and international travellers. The situation is particularly concerning for overseas visitors who are not familiar with the destinations the same way residents are, and could become targets due to their unfamiliarity with potentially dangerous neighbourhoods adjacent to popular tourist zones.”
