Travel Behaviour Risk Index
What really goes wrong on holiday?
The Travel Behaviour Risk Index is Safer Tourism Foundation’s annual analysis of how and why travellers encounter risk while on holiday. It combines real-world data with traveller insight to provide a “state of the nation” view of safety in travel.
Each year, we analyse an extensive dataset of aggregated and anonymised safety incident reports from UK travel operators and holiday providers, representing more than ten million trips taken by UK travellers annually. This provides a unique, evidence-based picture of the incidents and trends that most affect traveller wellbeing abroad.
To complement this, we conduct biannual research with 2,000 UK travellers, exploring attitudes, perceptions, and behaviours relating to risk and safety. This dual approach allows us to understand not only what goes wrong on holiday, but also how travellers think and act when it comes to their own safety.
The findings from both data sources are brought together in the Travel Behaviour Risk Index, which tracks year-on-year changes, highlights emerging risks, and provides insight for the travel industry on where prevention efforts can have the greatest impact.
By making this analysis publicly available, Safer Tourism Foundation aims to build awareness, improve standards, and inspire collective action to make travel safer for everyone.
Travel Risk 2025 Focus Areas
1. The 2025 Travel Safety Landscape
Travellers say they are prioritising safety when choosing where to go, but that focus fades once the holiday is booked. At the same time, incident numbers are rising, reflecting not only better reporting, but a higher likelihood of getting into difficulty while abroad.
2. The Confidence Paradox – Holiday Head 2.0?
Travellers feel confident and well-prepared, yet the data tells a different story. From heat illness to falls and gastric issues, optimism bias continues to influence traveller behaviour in relation to preventable incidents.
3. The New Risk Horizon
A warmer climate, an ageing traveller population, and evolving behaviour are reshaping the nature of travel risk. Health, environment, and behaviour now interact in ways that create new challenges for safety management and for communication with travellers.
4. Emerging Risk Areas and Behavioural Blind Spots
Rising reports of travellers experiencing inappropriate behaviour, harassment, mental-health incidents, and food allergy reactions highlight new vulnerabilities. At the same time, under-disclosed health conditions and overconfidence around e-bikes and ocean swimming expose unseen risks.
5. Today’s Evolving and Responsive Travel Industry
Travel providers are responding. Through the Safer Tourism Pledge, partners are putting public safety ahead of competition by sharing data, raising standards, and acting collectively on evidence — from installing CO alarms to reducing bike accidents and falls.
6. The Continued Importance of a Proactive Safety Culture
The Index highlights where risks are rising and how traveller behaviour and operator response will need to adapt. Safer Tourism invites operators, insurers, and data partners to join the Pledge and help make travel safer for all.
The 2025 Travel Landscape
Safety has moved from a background concern to an active decision driver. Safety and security have risen sharply in destination choice priorities. The level of safety and security of the destination increased in travellers’ priority by 21% between 2023 and 2024. While cost remains the top factor overall, more respondents than ever (92% in 2025 vs 88% in 2024) say risk and safety concerns are important when selecting a destination and 89% say they are important when choosing a holiday type (vs 84% last year).
At the same time, recorded health and safety incidents increased by 15% overall and the likelihood of a UK traveller experiencing a reported incident rose from 1 in 263 to 1 in 217. This contractions - theoretically heightened awareness yet marked rise in incident likelihood - reflects one of the core insights of the 2025 Index; that traveller confidence doesn’t necessarily correlate with the real risk in travel.
“As the holiday planning moves from macro (where shall I go?) to micro (what shall I book for the Tuesday afternoon?), travellers’ safety concerns fade. It could be interpreted as, once the destination has been chosen, we assume the key safety decision has been made and we switch off a bit more as we dig down into the detail of our holiday.””
The Confidence Paradox: Holiday Head 2.0
The data shows that travellers still demonstrate significant optimism bias, as the Holiday Head continues to play a major role in travel risk thinking and behaviour.
While the vast majority of travellers say safety is important to them, one in three UK travellers tell us they still travel without insurance. And the reason? They do not believe they’ll need it.
This despite the fact that a significant number of travellers* encounters safety challenges or health issues while on holiday:
Two in five travellers (39%) have suffered from a heat related incident
One in three travellers (32%) report experiencing an illness that required in destination medical attention
One in four travellers (26%) have experienced an injury requiring treatment
One in five travellers (22%) reported feeling out of their depth or experiencing a mismatch between their physical capabilities and the activity they were doing
And an alarming one in 10 (9%) of travellers say they or someone they were travelling with experienced a food allergy abroad - an increase of 29% since last year
Analysis of the Safer Tourism data mirrors what travellers report, with gastric related illnesses and slips & falls making up the majority of incidents recorded (39% and 16% of all reported incidents respectively).
But it’s the less common incidents - allergic reactions to food, being out of depth physically or getting into trouble in the water - that are the biggest cause for concern, as they are the most likely to lead to fatalities.
*Travellers reporting incidents for themselves or someone they were travelling with
Good intentions. Patchy prep.
Most travellers have the best of intentions when it comes to safety, yet only around a third take the time to do their research ahead of travelling.
The good:
Two in three travellers pack suitable clothing for the weather (68%) and pack sunscreen (64%)
The not so good:
38% research crime levels in destination.
30% research medical provision locally.
30% research safety policies at their accommodation.
7% pack a carbon monoxide alarm (although this proportion has increased from 5% in 2024!)
The New Risk Horizon
A warmer, more complex travel landscape is reshaping the way risk shows up for UK travellers, many of whom are in later life.
The 2025 data shows that today’s holiday risks are not “new”—but they are happening to new people, in new ways, and under new conditions. Three major forces are reshaping the risk environment: rising temperatures, an ageing traveller population, and the interaction between personal health conditions and travel contexts.
A warming world is now a mainstream travel safety issue - but largely ignored by travellers
Extreme heat is no longer an unusual scenario when it comes to risk planning.
1 in 4 UK travellers (25.4%) say they have personally experienced a heat-related incident abroad (Q22). Among them:
39% changed when they went outside
28.3% changed how they behaved outdoors
26.4% avoided specific activities
25.2% changed destination choices in future
Yet 30.1% made no adjustments at all, despite having already been affected
This clear behavioural split—between those who adapt and those who carry on unchanged—reinforces the scale of risk exposure during extreme heat events. It also underplays the reality that extreme heat affects each of us differently, with particular vulnerabilities for the very young, the very old and people with existing health conditions.
Health meets environment: a potent risk multiplier
The combined data shows that travellers often fail to disclose pre-existing health conditions to operators or insurers, even when asked directly.
But pre-existing conditions are strongly represented in multiple rising incident categories:
Heat-related illness
Fatalities in the ocean
Slips and falls (16% of 2024 incidents)
Mobility and cognitive impairment–related incidents
Assessing the risks to travellers with existing health conditions is complex because it’s about the intersection between individual health factors, the holiday environment and the type of trip. But if an operator or insurer doesn’t know about a health condition, it isn’t reasonable to expect them to respond to it. We want to find ways to make it easier for all travellers to feel able to tell their tour operator and insurer about any existing health condition.
Ageing travellers face higher baseline vulnerability
Older travellers (65 and older) contribute significantly to UK outbound travel volumes, yet the data reveals:
Older respondents report higher levels of pre-existing medical conditions, amplifying the risks to them during heat events or physically demanding activities.
Yet many of them admit they do not declare chronic conditions to their travel providers or their insurers.
They are less likely to change behaviour after experiencing a safety issue compared with younger adults.
Severe incident types in operator data—such as falls, dehydration and heat stress—disproportionately involve older travellers. And the impacts of these incidents can be much worse for them.
Emerging Risk Areas & Behavioural Blind Spots
New challenges gaining prevalence—and the behavioural tendencies that make them worse
The latest incident data and new consumer insights reveal several emerging areas of concern that warrant urgent attention across the industry.
Rises in Harassment, Sexual Harassment & Assault
Incident data shows reports of sexual harassment and assault have risen by two-thirds between 2023 and 2024.
Our traveller research also revealed an increase in harassment and inappropriate behaviour:
Eight percent of travellers report being a victim of harassment while on holiday, with one in 10 (10%) saying this has happened to someone they were travelling with
One in four travellers (26%) report feeling unsafe at night in public places
One in five (19%) say they have experienced unwanted attention or harassment
And perhaps most worryingly, one in 10 have experienced inappropriate behaviour from a member of staff at an accommodation (10%) or during a holiday activity (9%)
The notable increase in prevalence of reported sexual harassment and assault incidents is a concern shared by many in the industry who are actively working to address it.
Safer Tourism is adapting proven tools such as bystander interventions and situational awareness in an effort to empower all travellers.
Mental Health, Cognitive Challenges & Traveller Capability
The rates of incidents linked to mental health difficulties and cognitive impairment have increased by a third, highlighting a shifting capability landscape.
Travel amplifies vulnerabilities:
Mental health challenges can affect adults and younger travellers, with breaks in home routines sometimes exacerbating mental health conditions.
Some holiday environments can negatively impact travellers with existing cognitive or mental health challenges:
extreme heat can make some medications used to treat mental health conditions less effective.
travellers with dementia may find their symptoms worsening when they are away from familiar home environments
One in five travellers (22%) report feeling out of their depth during an activity while travelling.
A substantial proportion of incident reports relate to misjudging physical or cognitive ability. This includes activities such as cycling, hiking, water sports, and navigating unfamiliar environments.
E-bikes, E-scooters & Quad bikes
Though smaller in scale, operators report growing incident rates related to:
E-bike accidents
E-scooter incidents
The increased availability of e-bikes has opened up opportunities for destination exploration and made these types of activities more inclusive for a wider proportion of travellers. However, the incorrect assumption that they are ‘just faster bikes’ is dangerous, leading to a rise in accidents.
Some operators still offer quad bike tours, and while most conduct risk assessments, travellers continue to book independently with providers in destination who may have less stringent safety standards. When accidents do happen, they often have severe consequences.
Ocean Risks—Particularly for Male Travellers
A worrying pattern has emerged in our analysis of Safer Tourism Incident reports - an underestimation of the power of the ocean, particularly amongst older male travellers and especially in destinations with strong rip currents and/or large waves.
This aligns with consumer behaviour:
Men report higher confidence levels than women across almost every safety category.
Yet incident data show men are overrepresented in open water-related injuries and rescues.
Overconfidence + environmental unpredictability = a clear behavioural blind spot.
Food Allergies
Food allergy reaction incidents increased 14% between 2023 and 2024.
9% of travellers report experiencing a food related allergic response on holiday, with a further 13% telling us this has happened to someone they were travelling with
The pattern of food-related allergies is changing in the UK population, with a rise in milk-related allergies and with young adults being at particular risk of suffering fatal anaphylaxis. Travel providers need to look beyond good customer communications systems to the risks presented by complex supply chains in destinations. Allergen management is complicated by wide variations in regulation and food labelling around the world, and by the need to ensure all staff and suppliers understand the risks of getting allergen management wrong.
Despite the rising risk landscape, the travel industry is not standing still. The Safer Tourism Pledge continues to drive tangible, evidence-led improvements across the sector.
Pledge Partners commit to:
Supporting the mission to prevent serious harm
Maintaining safety excellence
Advising and informing travellers
Influencing for improvement across destinations
Responding quickly to emerging concerns
Sharing data and best practices to benefit everyone who travels
This commitment is translating into meaningful change.
Today’s Evolving and Responsive Travel Industry
How the sector is adapting—and the measurable impact of the Safer Tourism Pledge.
Travellers reward safety excellence
In the last year, the research also shows:
85% of travellers consider it important that their tour operator has stringent safety standards
75% say they are more likely to choose an operator who can demonstrate strong safety processes
The Pledge is helping operators respond to this shifting expectation and is building a unified approach to incident prevention—one that prioritises traveller wellbeing above commercial competition.
The Pledge in Practice
Operators taking action to keep travellers safe and well
Carbon Monoxide Poisoning Prevention
A major tour operator installed CO alarms across smaller accommodation portfolios in regions with weaker regulation—directly reducing exposure to one of the most fatal travel risks.
Reducing Bike Accidents Post-Pandemic
An adventure provider conducted a full supply chain safety audit, resulting in:
Removal of unsafe suppliers
Retraining for local partners
A two-thirds reduction in bike accidents
Reducing Falls at a Luxury Operator
Through targeted analysis of their incident data, this operator introduced:
Better hazard identification training
Improved arrival briefings for older customers
Resulting in a halving of the fall incident rate in one year.
Exploring the Impact of Extreme Heat on Holidays
Safer Tourism hosted a series of workshops delving into extreme heat and the impact this has on traveller behaviour and health.
Travel professionals from 10 operators attended the workshop
Providers adapted their travel products to allow for acclimatisation and customers with more sensitive traveller risk profiles
Building Capability Matching into the Customer Sales Journey
Safer Tourism conducted workshops with customer sales and support teams at a niche travel operator whose customers weren’t self-declaring their own physical limitations.
Workshops explored the psychology behind travellers believing they are more physically capable than they are
Explored sensitive and appropriate ways to encourage travellers to share more about their capabilities in order to match them to the right trip and activities
The Continued Importance of a Proactive Safety Culture
The 2025 Travel Behaviour Risk Index paints a clear picture: the broader travel landscape is evolving while traveller risk profiles are changing.
Against a backdrop of rising temperatures, an ageing traveller demographic, emerging risk areas, and a continued gap between perceived and actual safety behaviours, the need for a proactive, evidence-led safety culture has never been more vital.
This year’s Index highlights several critical trends:
• Safety now plays a major role in destination choice—but its importance fades rapidly once travellers move from big decisions to detailed planning.
• Incident likelihood continues to rise, driven by heat-related illness, gastric issues, slips and falls, water safety challenges, food allergies, harassment and assault, and newer areas such as mental-health related incidents and e-bike/scooter accidents.
• Behavioural blind spots persist, including overconfidence, optimism bias, and a significant proportion of travellers taking no meaningful safety precautions before or during their trip.
• Older and more vulnerable travellers face increasing risks, often compounded by undisclosed pre-existing conditions or mismatched capabilities.
Taken together, the data points to a future in which the risks familiar to the industry are now happening in new contexts, to new people, and are being reported more frequently. Traveller expectations are also shifting. More than ever, customers want reassurance that their travel provider understands the risks and has a credible plan for keeping them safe.
What this means for the future of travel safety
The travel industry requires an adaptive, transparent, and collaborative approach to safety. No single operator, insurer, or sector body can tackle this alone. Risks do not respect brand boundaries, and travellers rarely distinguish between which part of the ecosystem failed them when something goes wrong.
That is why safety must remain pre-competitive. Shared data, shared insight, and shared good practice are essential if the industry is to keep pace with rising risks and evolving traveller behaviour. The Safer Tourism Pledge provides a proven framework for that collaboration—uniting operators behind common commitments, driving practical improvements in destination safety practices, and building an evidence base large enough to meaningfully influence industry change.
An invitation to be part of the solution
As we look ahead, the insights from this year’s Travel Behaviour Risk Index makes one thing abundantly clear: a proactive safety culture is not only a moral imperative, but a strategic one. Operators who invest in safety today will be the ones best positioned to protect their customers, reduce harm, and build long-term trust in an increasingly complex travel environment. By building capabilities and improving safety standards in destination, operators contribute to a more resilient local tourism sector, directly benefiting the communities that are dependent on it.
Safer Tourism invites travel providers, insurers, associations and data contributors to join the Safer Tourism Pledge and help strengthen the collective effort to make travel safer for all.
By sharing data, insights, and best practice, we can create a future where preventable harm is reduced. As a result, travellers and the communities they visit benefit from a safer, more informed, and more resilient travel ecosystem.