THE ACADEMY WHERE DREAMS COME TRUE!
The Dreams Academy is an international social responsibility project where culture and art education is provided to disabled and socially disadvantaged youngsters free of charge. The project comprises workshops of vocal, rhythm, dance, film, photograph, DJ, instrument, painting and animation. The participants will acquire competency to get a job in their own branches when they complete their workshop trainings.
Located in the central region of Portugal, Lousã is an area which epitomises the unspoilt beauty of the Serra da Lousã mountain landscape. Following an initiative to host the first National Accessible Tourism Conference in April 2007, Lousã civil society organised a Task Force to plan for the development of Lousã as the first Accessible Tourism Destination in Portugal. The project aims to serve as an example both nationally and internationally. The website which is currently in Portuguese, will be available in English, French and Spanish in due course.
At the beginning of 2008, CenterKontura prepared a one-year experimental development Project called SPIT, which was supported by the Fund of the Republic of Slovenia for Promotion of Employment of Persons with Disabilities.
Today sees the launch of accessible.travel - a new on-line booking site for people with disabilities and others who need to know about the accessibility of venues and hotels before they travel. The site is run by Craig Grimes, a wheelchair user and determined traveller, adventurer and consultant to the tourism industry.
South African tourism authorities are knuckling down to the issue of accessible tourism during a month-long visit of leading US disability expert Scott Rains. Dr Rains, a wheelchair-user for 37 years and an advocate for the rights of disabled travellers, will be meeting South Africa's largest disability organisations and tourism bodies during his month-long visit to the country. The aim of his trip is to evaluate the quality of the South African tourism product for disabled and older travellers – and ultimately to build awareness of the importance of good access to the country's tourism industry as a whole.
The INTERREG IVc programme on innovation and environment targets the transnational exchange of experience and good practice between public sector organisations working at municipal, provincial and regional levels in the EU Member States. With the 2nd Call for proposals now open, ENAT is keen to support public authorities in their bids to design and implement transnational projects where accessible tourism is in focus.
Physically challenged and elderly persons might soon find it easier to access tourist destinations in India as the Government intends to make them barrier-free for the benefit of this section of tourists. The Indian Tourism Ministry has made it mandatory that all tourist facilities, which are being created with Central Government financial assistance, should be barrier-free, the tourism secretary, Mr Shilabhadra Banerjee, said on 24 October at a Training Workshop for Government managers and engineers.
Rough Guides provide travellers with pocket-book information from shoestring to luxury and cover more than 200 destinations around the globe. Rough Guides and Motability have joined forces to produce an inspiring new Rough Guide to Accessible Britain. Everyone is now invited to send their review of a favourite attraction for the next edition. The competition ends on 7th November 2008.
A study prepared for presentation at ITB Asia, 24 October 2008, Singapore. With the search for new, long-term oriented, equitable and sustainable social and economic systems now robustly under way, the travel & tourism industry is
extremely well placed to prove that it can be a part of the solution. This study is meant to draw attention to the importance of small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) in the Asia Pacific travel & tourism industry. If travel
& tourism is just as important an economic sector as telecommunications, agriculture and manufacturing, it important to recognise the immense contribution of its SMEs to job creation, foreign exchange earnings and poverty
alleviation, as well as their contribution to creativity and innovation.
There are more than 700 million people with some kind of disability worldwide. Although handicapped they love travelling as much as anyone of us. Accessible tourism is not only about wide doors and greater signs – it is also about people. Come and learn about the trends in accessible tourism and about the ways how to deal with seniors and travellers with disabilities.
This document profiles key Sustainable Tourism Cooperative Research Centre (STCRC) research into disability and accessible tourism perspectives and issues, an important and growing component of the Australian tourism landscape. The publication, available only in PDF format and free of charge, has been developed with the visitor, service provider, planning agency and industry operator in mind, bringing together summaries, statistics, key findings and recommendations in an easily accessible format.
This edition of the Design for All India Newsletter brings together, for the first time, a range of articles about inclusive, accessible tourism in India. The guest editor is Dr. Scott Rains, who travelled to India in 2008, meeting and working with tourism industry representatives, destination managers and disability groups. Authors of the invited articles include travel agents, travellers, product designers, teachers and planners.
