Is It Safe?

In the past, I have often complained about the use (or misuse) of statistics to mislead.  A pretty good example is the article below.

Dan Goy is founder and “Wagon Master” of Baja Amigos RV Caravan Tours, and a frequent contributor to travel magazines and blogs.  Here is an excerpt from his recent article on travel in Mexico:

Are you safer in Mexico or in America?

May 22, 2012 -As Lonely Planet’s US Travel Editor, I frequently get asked if it’s safe to go to Mexico.

I have always said that, if you’re thoughtful about where you go, the answer is yes. But, after my most recent trip there, I’m answering the question with another question: Do you think it’s safe to go to Texas? 

To be clear, violence in Mexico is no joke.  There have been over 47,000 drug-related murders alone in the past five years.  Its murder rate — 18 per 100,000 according to this United Nations Office on Drugs & Crime report - is more than three times the US rate of 4.8 per 100,000. Though Mexican tourism is starting to bounce back, Americans appear more reluctant to return than Canadians and Brits (5.7 million Americans visited in 2011, down 3% from 2010 – and, according to Expedia, more than four of five bookings were adults going without children). Many who don’t go cite violence as the reason.

What you don’t get from most reports in the US is statistical evidence that Americans are less likely to face violence in Mexico than at home, particularly when you zero in on Mexico’s most popular travel destinations. For example, the gateway to Disney World, Orlando, saw 7.5 murders per 100,000 residents in 2010 according to the FBI; this is higher than Cancun or Puerto Vallarta, with rates of 1.83 and 5.9 respectively, per a Stanford University report. Yet in March, the Texas Department of Public Safety advised against “spring break” travel anywhere in Mexico, a country the size of the UK, France, Germany, Spain and Italy combined. Never mind that popular destinations like the Bahamas, Belize and Jamaica have far higher homicide rates (36, 42 and 52 per 100,000). Why the singular focus?

Before you nix Mexico altogether, consider this:

1. Mexico may be more dangerous than the US overall, but not for Americans.

According to FBI crime statistics, 4.8 Americans per 100,000 were murdered in the US in 2010. The US State Department reports that 120 Americans of the 5.7 million who visited Mexico last year were murdered, which is a rate of 2.1 of 100,000 visitors. Regardless of whether they were or weren’t connected to drug trafficking, which is often not clear, it’s less than half the US national rate.

2. Texans are twice as safe in Mexico and three times safer than in Houston.

Looking at the numbers, it might be wise for Texans to ignore their Public Safety department’s advice against Mexico travel. Five per 100,000 Texans were homicide victims in 2010, per the FBI. Houston was worse, with 143 murders, or a rate of 6.8 – over three times the rate for Americans in Mexico.

3. And it’s not just Texas.

It’s interesting comparing each of the countries’ most dangerous cities. New Orleans, host city of next year’s Super Bowl, broke its own tourism record last year with 8 million visitors. Yet the Big Easy has ten times the US homicide rate, close to triple Mexico’s national rate.

Obviously, Dan’s article was meant to be reassuring, and it is - until you consider that he is comparing apples to orangutans! 

Take the figures he quotes for Orlando, Houston and New Orleans, for example. While they may be factually correct, they are essentially meaningless.  The figures  would only be valid if Goy compared the Mexican statistics to the number of American tourists killed in those cities each year.

It might also be interesting to know how many of Houston’s homicide victims were Mexican nationals, although the number of illegal aliens who meet untimely ends would undoubtedly skew the number. 

I do not have figures to back up this assertion, but I would be willing to bet that the percentage of Mexicans here legally for the purpose of tourism who die in the U.S. is less than the number (2.1 per 100,000) Goy quoted for U.S. tourists in Mexico.