The country’s tourism agency has issued a call to Turkey’s Ministry of Tourism and Culture to check the “killer tours” of illegal jeep safaris and eliminate illegal and dangerous business in Turkey. The reason was the last terrible accident in Marmaris, in which five tourists died, and the tour company turned out to be “illegal”.
“Accidents on safari jeeps in Antalya and Marmaris happen one after another. In just one month, there were seven road accidents, in which six tourists died and 26 people were injured during jeep tours,” the initiators of the appeal said.
They recall that the first accident happened in Manavgat in July when the driver of a safari jeep lost control and the car fell into an abyss. As a result of the accident, the driver and one tourist were killed, and 8 tourists were injured. The second accident happened on August 8 in Alanya – on an excursion to the Sapaderi canyon, the driver failed to fit into a turn and overturned, all seven passengers were injured, fortunately, there were no deaths. In the third accident in Antalya, five Polish tourists were injured – the reason is the same, loss of control over steering and a collision with a bumper.
And here is a new tragedy. On August 24, 5 people were killed and 4 injured in Marmaris, Mugla Province, after another jeep overturned on a slippery road. The accident happened on the Marmaris-Datcha ring road, the tourists were from the Middle East. The car that lost control overturned several times, and as it turned out, the tourists were not even wearing seat belts – at the time of the accident, they were simply thrown onto the road. As a result, five people died, and four were taken to the hospital, the driver was also injured in the accident but received minor injuries. Both the driver of the jeep and the head of the travel company that organized the safari have been detained and an investigation is underway.
“Most of these safari tours are illegal. Officially, only group A travel agencies registered with TÜRSAB can organize a safari tour. But all the organizers of these tours were not registered with any agency,” commented the president of TÜRSAB Alanya BTK Bilal Korkmaz. He emphasized that the official tourism business has been calling attention to the fact that safari tours are organized in large numbers by dubious persons without any licenses who “neglect the lives of tourists and organize illegal tours.” “People ‘from the street’ buy or rent jeeps and invite unsuspecting tourists to go on safari tours. They have neither education nor corresponding rights. In many tourist destinations in Turkey, such as Manavgat, Kusadasi, and Alanya, tourists are sent on complicated routes with inadequate staff, without paying taxes to the state and putting tourists’ lives at risk.”
At the same time, as Korkmaz complained, the officials are silent. “We inform the ministry about such illegal travel agents almost every week. We are told that inspections are not possible because there are not enough staff. At the same time, the ministry has every right to fine an illegal travel agency, and most importantly, to prohibit departure or even confiscate means of transportation. Our powers as TÜRSAB are limited in this sense, but if we receive permission, we are ready at any moment to start inspections and stop dangerous illegals. All we ask from the ministry is to respond positively to our inspection request at a time when demand for safari tours is increasing.”