Approaches to Reduce and Prevent Accidental Risks in Site Management and Inspection by Planning in the Balloon Tour

Abstract

In addition to the opportunities provided by balloon tours in Göreme, which has the largest balloon fleet in our country, the risks arising from unplanned approaches have also gained visibility in parallel with the increase in the number of tours and constitute an important problem area that needed to be worked on. In terms of evaluating the applications in recent years, it is important to analyze the knowledge and experience in the field, if there are, to reveal the problems and to develop solutions. In the study, the socio-economic characteristics of balloon tours, the risks of accidents, and the ways of structuring the competition in this field in a healthy way have been investigated. A field-assisted SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats) analysis was performed in the study. The findings of the study are that the risks caused by the increasing competition in balloon tours, which is a rapidly growing type of adventure tourism, can be improved with area management and inspection approaches. Compared to other alterna-tive tourism types that have developed in the world and in our country in recent years, balloon tours have reached an important point with the effect of attracting tourists and the added value it creates. However, it had been lived a past period that there are deficiencies in the theoretical and practical infrastructure for balloon tour planning in Turkey. The contribution of the study is to identify these deficiencies and open them up for discussion and to prevent them through site management and control. The conclusion of the study, keeping the accident risks under control with the approach of site management and inspection, is brought to the fore.