In the category of murder rates alone, Mexico fell even farther down the list. Jamaica had 1.73 killings annually for every 100,000 Canadians visiting the country. Mexico’s rate was 0.268 killings for every 100,000 Canadians visiting a year, on average, between 2000 and 2010.
All other favoured tourist destinations had less than one Canadian killed for every 100,000 who visited the country, including mainland China (0.379), Dominican Republic (0.34) and Australia (0.269).
Gordon Houlden, the director of the Edmonton-based China Institute, said China’s ranking surprised him, but the higher figures in China may stem from the type of tourism it offers.
Visitors to Jamaica and Mexico typically head to enclosed resorts and spend their time on the beach, while visitors to China tend to explore the country independently, he said.
“People who go to China are circulating in the broader society,” Houlden said. “They are on their own to a greater extent — much more than if you look at the numbers of Mexico or Jamaica.”
Also, violent incidents don’t necessarily get reported in the Chinese media unless the incident is high profile.
There are still a lot of parts of Mexico that I’d think twice about visiting.
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