The European Network for Accessible Tourism (ENAT) has registered this week as a non-profit organisation in Belgium. This marks an exciting new phase in its European and international operations.
A major milestone has been reached with the publication this week of the recommendations from the Second International Conference on Accessible Tourism held November 22 - 24, 2007 at the United Nations in Bangkok, Thailand. Sixteen recommendations directed towards governments, public agencies, tourism businesses and academia seek to promote the development of inclusive tourism in the region, targetting a wide range of measures for both specialised and mainstream services.
UK specialist tour operator, Vitalise Holidays is offering destinations as diverse as Peru, Iceland and the Mediterranean in a summer 2008 programme for visually impaired travellers. The brochure is available in large print, Braille, CD and by email in PDF or Word.
In Thailand, the Disabled Peoples' International - Asia Pacific (DPI-AP) and the Asia Pacific Disability Forum (APDF) and partners organised the Second International Forum on Accessible Tourism (ICAT 2007) from 22-24 November 2007.
In its updated European Disability Action Plan 2008-2009, published on 26 November 2007, the European Commission notes the formation of ENAT as a targetted action to improve accessibility to tourism for people with disabilities. The EC also makes proposals to improve access to goods and services by developing statistical services for monitoring accessibility and encouraging new standards.
The ASK-IT integrated project aims to establish Ambient Intelligence (AmI) in semantic web enabled services, to support and promote the mobility of Mobility Impaired people, enabling the provision of personalised, self-configurable, intuitive and context-related applications and services and facilitating knowledge and content organisation and processing.
The Municipality of Arona, Tenerife Sur, has taken up the challenge to make its tourist offers available to everyone, including people with disabilities, through the Arona Integral Accessibility Plan. An access guide to Tenerif Sur, produced in 2007, covers information bureaux, facilities, transport and accommodations in three languages, Spanish, English, German. The Guide has 170 pages and is richly illustrated.
Air Canada announced that as of July 15, 2007, pets must travel as air cargo, not as checked luggage. Service animals without proper documentation may be affected. Other airlines apply their own rules.
In Working Like Dogs: The Service Dog Guidebook, two fans of service dogs explain what they are and what it's like to have a dog that's trained to help a disabled person.
An access guide to Tenerife Sur, produced in 2007, covers information bureaux, facilities, transport and accommodations in three languages, Spanish, English, German. 169 pages. It is published by the Municipality of Arona. Arona has taken up the challenge to make its tourist offers available to everyone, including people with disabilities, through the Arona Integral Accessibility Plan.
In times of demographic change and under consideration of the fact that at present 70% of the 46 million handicapped people living in Europe would be able to travel, the importance of ‘Accessible Tourism for All’ comes clear. Therefore, it is the aim of this M.A. thesis to analyse this topic.
After a short introduction, the first part deals with the experiences already made with
accessible tourism in Europe by presenting certain organisations acting in this field and by
giving an overview of their projects.
In the second part the actual demand, the existing offer and the positive and negative effects of accessible tourism will be discussed.
In the third part the specific travel behaviour of blind and visually impaired people will finally be analysed. In order to gain information on this topic, a survey was carried out among people
concerned.
This M.A thesis was submitted to University of Paderborn, Germany in the Faculty of Cultural Science - Geography. The thesis is in German.
