An Assessment of the Operational Conditions of the Chimbora- Zo Airport to Optimize Its Use for Tourist Transportation

ABSTRACT

The confinement resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic has made it necessary to distance ourselves from others in order to avoid contagion. Thus, services directly related to tourism have adapted their offerings to consider such distancing, in hotels, restaurants and passenger ground transportation. An alternative in this context for safe transportation is air transportation, which is not offered in all provinces of Ecuador. The objective of this study is to determine the real conditions and trends of tourism demand in the city of Chimborazo, Ecuador, in order to strengthen criteria and guide sound decision making, ba-sed on the characterization of the infrastructure and operations of the airport located in the city of Riobamba. The empirical analytical method was applied, with multivariate statistical analysis regarding the existence of demand. It is concluded that the infrastructure has the conditions in terms of dimensions and space for the development of decolada and landing of air-planes, however, it is necessary to include infrastructure for the operation in sales of air tickets in counters of travel agencies or airlines, waiting rooms, supermarket and other facilities.