Europe for All Stakeholder Conference on Accessible Tourism, January 2007

The Tourism Unit of the European Commission’s DG Enterprise and Industry with the technical support of OSSATE partners and Tourism Flanders organised a stakeholder conference on Accessible Tourism. This one-and-a-half day conference took place on Thursday 18th and Friday 19th January in Brussels at the Charlemagne Building and was one of the first events in the "European Year of Equal Opportunities for All" 2007.

The Conference drew over 200 delegates who shared experience and debated many aspects of accessible tourism. The conference focussed especially on the impacts and business opportunities of the process of demographic ageing that will lead to a growing share of tourists with needs for more accessibility and higher service quality.

Four sessions were devoted to the main themes of accessibility in tourism:

Day 1:

• "Accessibility in Transport"

• "Information & Marketing on Accessibility" (with a presentation of the ‘Europe for All’ accessible tourism information portal, developed by OSSATE)

Day 2:

• "Accessibility within Training and Employment"

• "Accessible Infrastructure in Destinations".

In each session the presentation of a good practice highlighted the key challenges and innovative responses. This formed the framework for the following debate with an expert panel and delegates. Each session was followed by conclusions and contributions to future actions, given by the European Commission.

To view presentations from the conference, visit the OSSATE webpages at the following link:
http://www.ossate.org/events_conference.jsp