At a time when European leaders are facing up to a massive debt crisis, 1.5 million euros of taxpayers' money is being spent on sending EU citizens on free holidays. Watch the video.
New research shows 1 in 5 parents in the UK can’t take a enough time off work to have a holiday. A staggering 49% of workers have not used their holiday allowance. Over two thirds (72%) are home late from work so can’t spend time with their kids. Holiday firm, Thomson, creates first ever Family Charter to put quality time at the heart of the family.
Co-hosted by the Rick Hansen Foundation and the Rick Hansen Institute, Interdependence 2012 is an international four-day conference and exposition with a focus on creating accessible communities and furthering spinal cord injury (SCI) research for a cure. Abstracts are now invited for presentations in the theme session on "Making Communities Accessible for All". The two sub-themes are "Accessible and Inclusive Tourism" and "UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities".
"Touched by Olivia" inclusive playgrounds, Australia (prize-winner) and the "Tourism for All" programme by Tourism Flanders, Belgium (highly commended) have been invited to Hangzhou, China to receive their awards during the 2nd World Leisure Expo and Forum on 18 November 2011.
Showing its commitment to put into effect Article 30 of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, the Italian Ministry of Tourism has created a Manifesto promoting Accessible Tourism. ENAT is the first international NGO to support the manifesto.
As a result of the activities of the Foundation " Ne spirai / Don’t Stop” the "Cluster for accessible tourism (CAT)” was founded, with the core purpose of promoting business and development of accessible tourism in Bulgaria with the brand "Bulgaria for All".
February marks the end of ELMA’s first year in action and It will also mark the beginning of a new era for ELMA. The future of ELMA looks bright and it is now hoped that the next steps for ELMA will bring local enterprise closer so that together we may move into developing an Accessible Vuokatti… A VUOKATTI FOR ALL!
As part of the CALYPSO Preparatory Action, the European Commission has approved the project presented by Spain, Portugal and Poland to work jointly on preparing a seniors exchange system in the low season. Representatives of the three national administrations will work for eleven months to start up these transnational exchanges of senior tourists in 2012.
The first Directory of the International Social Tourism Organisations’ Network of Local and Regional Authorities (ISTO) has been presented during the plenary meeting of the Network which was held on May 26-27 in Östersund (Sweden) on the invitation of the Jämtland Härjedalen Region.
Evaluation Report (Spain) - Working Document, May 2010. The seasonality of tourism in Spain, and in Europe in general, is one of the most relevant limitations when trying to improve its competitiveness, and business and social-economic profitability. In a time of recession and budget cuts in the public administrations, an opportunity to strengthen the tourist activity in the mid and low seasons arises, by rekindling the labour market with an active employment policy, strengthening the relations between the societies of the EU member states, and extending citizens’ right to travel and go on holiday, through social programmes that facilitate and motivate new influxes of tourists.
This book of readings by Italian and international authors was prepared in 2010 by the Italian Institute of Tourism for All in order to provide an overview of historical developments, current trends and perspectives on the future of accessible tourism. The text is in Italian and English.
Everyone deserves a break. Calypso is an exciting European Commission initiative that could improve the lives of underprivileged citizens across Europe. It aims to allow people who cannot usually do so to travel to Europe’s holiday spots, while at the same time helping local economies beat the offseason blues.
