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Promising Practices for Assisting International Tourist Victims
This is an approved draft of a document developed by NOVA for the Office for Victims of Crime that was to have been published as an OVC newsletter; it has not been published and is available only to NOVA members.

Introduction
Each year, millions of people leave home to travel in foreign countries, a travel pattern that is accelerating every year. Countries who play host to these travelers ­ and business people, students, refugees, and others ­ find that their visitors are no more immune to criminal victimization than their own citizens. In fact, often lacking language skills, bearings, or “street smarts,” travelers can be considerably more vulnerable than local citizens to crime. This challenges victim assistance practitioners to undertake new ways to assist victims whose citizenship, language, and culture are unlike their own. It also challenges each nation’s tourist industry to support effective, compassionate services to those who fall victim to crime while traveling abroad. This Bulletin describes an increasing awareness of the special problems facing international tourists victimized in another country, and further outlines the promising practices of the earliest pioneers in this new specialty in the delivery of victim services. It is, of course, intended for OVC’s primary constituency ­ victim assistance programs throughout the United States ­ but it also seeks to be of service to their counterparts across the globe, and to their local and national tourist industries, which can be important allies in promoting justice and healing to foreign visitors whose travels were marred by crime.

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