UAE named world’s second safest country to visit

The gulf nation beat popular tourist destinations such as France, Italy, Singapore, Thailand including US

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) was named the world's second safest country, Khaleej Times reported on Sunday.

The UAE beat popular tourist destinations such as France, Italy, Singapore, Thailand and the United States in a ranking by British travel magazine - Which? Travel. 

The magazine looks at destination security by analysing the crime rates, whereby the UAE was ranked second while Iceland was ranked number one. However, both the countries received scores of 6.6.



Which? Travel ranked 20 countries using data gathered by the World Economic Fund, World Risk Report, the NHS Fit for Travel website and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO). Other than crime rates, they also gauged the likelihood of major natural disasters, health risks attached and terrorism risk levels in the countries.

"Of the 20 holiday destinations that we looked at, Iceland, unsurprisingly, came out as the safest country," the magazine said.

"The UAE and Singapore were also considered extremely safe, with Spain the next safest of the six popular European holiday destinations that we looked at."



Considering health, the UAE is considered "low risk" whereas considering likelihood of natural disasters it was called the "third-safest" country.

"The riskiest country was earthquake-afflicted Japan, which, while considered extremely safe by most measures, had a natural disaster risk of 13.47 per cent," the report said.

On the other hand, South Africa, Turkey, Thailand, India and Mexico were rated some of the worst tourist spots in terms of crime rates.

This article originally appeared in Khaleej Times