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Holiday planning: Where and how are you most likely to get scammed?
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.
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 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.
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.
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".
The EU has struck a new ocean pact meant to protect Europe's coasts and "life in and around the sea", European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said on Monday at the United Nations Ocean Conference in Nice.
The EU's goal is to bring 20% of Europe's marine ecosystems back to life by 2030, she explained.
'We will strive to cut plastic and nutrient pollution by half within five years,' von der Leyen announced, adding: 'We will restore natural habitats and shelter our coasts more effectively from the impact of climate change.'
The European Commission adopted the pact last Thursday. The strategy aims to enhance ocean protection and restoration by supporting member states and revising several European laws related to maritime areas.
The EU's executive also wants to boost the competitiveness of the maritime industry with a new strategy for the sector and a strategy for EU ports.
'Our fishers work tirelessly to feed us, day and night, in all conditions. Yet extreme weather and unfair competition are pushing too many of them out of business,' the Commission president said, announcing some grants to support small-scale fisheries.
Von der Leyen also promised that €1 billion would be allocated for 50 projects around the world for scientists and conservationists, a third of which is due to finance research and scientific projects.
The pact should lead to specific legislation that will be proposed by 2027, the Commission said.
Eight years after the inaugural edition in New York, France is hosting the third United Nations Ocean Conference (UNOC3) in Nice from Monday to Friday. Around 60 countries are coming together to support the protection and restoration of ocean spaces damaged by human activity.
Unlike the United Nations' climate change conferences, or COPs, no formal agreement can be negotiated during the UNOC3.
However, France hopes to secure as many signatures as possible for the High Seas Treaty, which requires 60 countries to ratify it for it to enter into force. The treaty aims to enable the creation of protected marine areas in international waters.
'Today, we are inches away from the 60 signatures for ratification,' von der Leyen said, announcing €40 million for the Global Ocean programme designed to strengthen protection of oceans in least developed countries.
'Please speed up ratification. Because our ocean needs us to play its part,' she added.
