ENAT, the European Network for Accessible Tourism and FEG, the European Federation of Tourist Guide Associations, have signed a Partnership Agreement, aiming to improve the skills of professional tourist guides, who guide visitors with disabilities.
The headquarters of the Official College of Architects of Madrid (COAM), hosted this past Wednesday September 16th the Conference "Present and Future of Accessible Tourism in Spain" organized by the Spanish Network for Accessible Tourism (Red Estable), an association that brings together more than 100 entities and that acts as a focus for promoting and fostering the Accessible Tourism for everyone in Spain.
Following a successful pilot project in 2013 and 2014 with four destinations – Visit Bath, goLeicestershire, NewcastleGateshead and VisitBrighton, the national tourist authority, VisitEngland accessed funding from the European Commission to expand its Access for All initiative.
14 September 2015: VisitEngland, the national tourist board, is today launching a new Access for All campaign, aimed to raise awareness of accessible destinations and businesses in England; informing disabled people of accommodation and visitor attractions when planning a day trip or holiday.
The Norwegian Government has dedicated 2015 as the Year of Outdoor Recreation in Norway.
To promote outdoor recreation in the county, Rogaland County Council has taken the initiative to make a film presenting some of the recreation areas in the county. Special attention is given to sites made accessible for all.
You can download the film: “Universal design in recreational areas in Rogaland” on this website:
http://www.rogfk.no/Vaare-tjenester/Regionalplan/Friluftsliv/Friluftslivets-aar-2015
The web-site www.tilgjengelighet.no mentioned in the film is for the moment only in Norwegian. An English version is being prepared these days and will be available fairly soon.
APP TOUR YOU is an European project funded by the Erasmus plus programme, strategic partnerships for Vocational and Educational Training (VET). It experiments with new models of training on accessible tourism and information targeted to SMEs and entrepreneurs in the field of tourism.
Sozopol is a town in south-eastern Bulgaria located on the Black Sea coast, situated on a few small peninsulas in the southern part of the Burgas Bay. With a population of 4,767 people, it is within the Burgas Province and is the administrative centre of the Municipality of Sozopol, which has a population of 14,833 people. It is a member of the League of Historical Accessible Cities.
The ESCAPE project brings together 8 partners who have joined forces with the view to work on the enhancement of the existing tourist infrastructure and staff in the low season, facilitating as such transnational exchanges off-season by concentrating on the senior citizens market.
The project focuses on adult education and business development (business competencies) in the field of accessible tourism for all. The name of the project "Elevator“ represents the effort to raise the quality of human resources and services in tourism to a higher, more competitive level.
For those with an interest in accessible travel, Elina Michopoulou, Simon Darcy, Dimitrios Buhalis and Ivor Ambrose (ENAT) have edited a special issue of this new journal. We have organised free access to the Special Issue on the Future of Accessible Tourism, available in HTML and PDF formats.