Tourists visiting London are welcomed with open arms. Come and experience the brand new Millennium Dome; visit our castles and museums, the guides say, and then part with a large amount of money to spend a night in a city centre hotel.
Costs might be prohibitive, but tourists will usually include a journey on a red London bus during their stay. Perhaps it is nostalgia for the black and white films of the 1950s, when the buses whizzed around a smoggy Piccadilly Circus, that draws them on to the No 19 from Finsbury Park to Kensington. Or maybe it is the exhilarating experience of standing on the open platform at the back and holding on to the pole, gulping mouthfuls of car fumes, while timing the jump off at the next stop.
Whatever the appeal, and bearing in mind the various crime rates of large cities, surely travelling in London is still a safe experience?
The reaction of many people here to the death of Swedish tourist Ms Maria Wodianitzy (49) this week after she was mugged on a London bus has been one of shame and disappointment.
Her death has prompted Londoners to ask once more whether security on public transport is adequate but just as many have shrugged their shoulders and resigned themselves to the fact that everyone is a potential victim of crime. Not surprisingly, many tourists are feeling increasingly uneasy about travelling in central London.
The circumstances of Ms Wodianitzy's death are not remarkable, save for the fact that she became a victim of crime just two hours after arriving in London with her former husband and her son, Andre (13), from Stockholm last Saturday.
No doubt Ms Wodianitzy arrived in London on the first day of a week's holiday bursting with plans for her son, anticipating the tourist attractions they would visit together. Perhaps that is what they were discussing when they all boarded a bus with their suitcases, heading for a flat in Kensington a few hours after their flight landed at Heathrow Airport.
When the bus turned into Kensington Gore close to Albert Hall, Ms Wodianitzy stood up to get off the bus, but another passenger, a man, also stood up. It was then he made his attack and grabbed her handbag.
Dragging her the length of the bus and on to the platform at the back, Ms Wodianitzy's attacker then attempted to pull her off the bus. As he did so she fell and hit her head hard on the pavement. After spending three days in a coma on a life support machine at the specialist head injury unit at King's College Hospital, she died on Tuesday, with her son and former husband by her side.
As the police investigation gets under way to find Ms Wodianitzy's killer - they believe she was targeted because she was a tourist - one of the key elements in identifying the attacker might be provided by a London black cab driver. According to eyewitness accounts, her attacker jumped off the bus and was chased for several hundred yards before hailing a taxi and making his escape.
The general secretary of the Licensed Taxi Drivers' Association, Mr Bob Oddy, is urging his members to think back to Saturday afternoon and try to remember if they picked up the man in Kensington.
The Victim Support agency deals with thousands of British and foreign victims of crime in Britain every day. And while Home Office figures do not break down the statistics of crime according to nationality, Ms Tamara Wilder, a spokeswoman for the Victim Support agency, points out there are particular problems experienced by tourists if they are the victims of crime, not least language barriers and a reluctance to report the crime to the police.
Tourists spending a weekend or two weeks in London are less likely to report a crime than if they are resident in Britain and, according to Victim Support's research, the practical advice available to a tourist visiting for only a short time is limited.
"We are encouraging all tourists to report crime here. If they were raped we can pass on information about counsellors or if they were mugged then we can give them practical advice about compensation and insurance if that is appropriate," says Ms Wilder.
However, she is not convinced that tourists should be any more concerned about their safety as a result of Ms Wodianitzy's death: "It is certainly tragic that she was not here for a very long time and was the victim of crime," she says. "It is appalling and the fact that she was on holiday and may have let her guard down makes it all the worse, but I believe that she was in the wrong place at the wrong time, rather than being targeted because she was a tourist."
Victim Support can be contacted on 0845 3030900