Karen Aim, seen here on holiday in Wellington, came from the remote Orkney Islands. Photo / NZPA

Karen Aim, seen here on holiday in Wellington, came from the remote Orkney Islands. Photo / NZPA

The young Scottish tourist murdered in Taupo yesterday has been named as Karen Aim from the remote Orkney Islands.

A blessing will be held tonight at 6pm at the scene where her badly injured body was found.

A memorial service, which was earlier expected to take place tonight, will now be held early next week to allow the victim's relatives in Palmerston North to come to terms with the tragedy.

Police from across the North Island have been brought in to assist in the operation.

Following the memorial service, police will carry out an extensive canvas of Taupo bars to try and find people who may have been in contact with Miss Aim before she died.

Police in Britain earlier confirmed that the woman's family had been informed of her death, the BBC reported. Ms Aim, 26, was as about far from home as it was possible for her be when she was murdered.

Her parents Brian and Peggy Aim live on the main island of the isolated group in the town of Holm, population 450.

News of their daughter's violent death had shocked the community.

Mr Aim, a builder, told NZPA he had been to New Zealand and thought it was a beautiful place.

"I loved the place, and so did Karen," he said.

Ms Aim was the "sweetest person" a friend said yesterday.

She was brutally attacked near Taupo's Nui-a-Tia College as she walked home from a night out in town.

She fell in love with Taupo on a visit in 2006, returning last October on a working visa.

Miss Aim was found in the early hours of Thursday with serious head injuries and died in hospital.

She was brutally attacked as she walked home from a night out in Taupo.

A friend of the woman told the Herald she was "the sweetest person I ever met".

The friend, who asked not to be identified, said the woman was on a working holiday from Scotland.

She had previously been in Taupo for a holiday, and had fallen in love with the place.

"She had come back to stay. But she had only been here six weeks or two months. She did not deserve this."