Sex tourism is rife, but it’s no longer just dirty old men

June 30, 2026 — 3:44pm

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Sex tourism hotspots are teeming with brand-new arrivals and those visitors are not who they used to be.

We don’t have precise figures about the numbers – because who puts “travelling to get cheap sex” on their visa forms? That’s one of the reasons we can’t ever know exactly who they are. But a bloke who has spent 40 years researching sex work tells me it’s the biggest shift he’s ever seen. Ronald Weitzer, emeritus professor, George Washington University, has been studying sex tourism and its participants for decades, and he can see the change in his own field work: the shift from older men to younger men, the shift in ethnic groups.

It turns out sex tourism is no longer just a country for old men, those in their 60s and 70s, widowed, divorced or otherwise alone. Now it’s young men in their 20s, 30s, 40s. They’re going for what they think is a good time. They don’t have to pay attention to home norms or behaviours. They can be who they want to be, no matter how awful that might be.

But whatever age they are, they don’t usually end up murdering children. Weitzer says the murder of sex workers is unusual – and countries across the world have rallied to be much more proactive protecting sex workers and working to end child trafficking.

This is a sleazy,........

© The Sydney Morning Herald