More than half a billion persons in the world are disabled as a result of mental, physical or sensory impairment. The right of disabled persons to participate fully in the social life and development of their societies and to enjoy living conditions equal to those of other citizens, as well as to share equally in the improvements in living conditions resulting from social and economic development has been largely recognized by international and european union resolutions. This right is closely related to the accessibility of the disabled to transport and tourist destinations.
In this paper we focus on the initiatives undertaken by the European Union and the United Nations on accessible tourism. These initiatives are based on two elements: The first is to make real improvements at tourist destinations by implementing improved standards in tourist and travelling infrastructure and the second is to make information about the accessibility of tourist destinations widely available to the tourist industry and its customers. Both elements imply the involvement of tourist authorities, travel agencies, hotels, voluntary organizations and others involved in organizing recreational activities or travel opportunities, who should offer their services to all, taking into account the special needs of persons with disabilities.
Presentation by Ivor Ambrose, Managing Director of ENAT, at the "Accessi Tourisme Simposium. Building Accessible Destinations", Autonomous University of Barcelona, Spain.
The Study on the Competitiveness of the EU tourism industry - with specific focus on the accommodation and tour operator & travel agent industries - was commissioned by the Commission and run by Ecorys. Disclaimer : The views and propositions expressed in the study are those of the experts and do not necessarily represent any official view of the European Commission or any other organisations mentioned in the Report.
With thousands of blogs appearing on the Web every minute, it takes something special to make any single one of them stand out from the crowd. For those interested in research on accessible tourism, Dr. Simon Darcy's new blog on Accessible Tourism Research holds significant promise of making research findings more accessible to everyone. Also, it can help to shape the international agenda of research and development in this growing and diverse field of study.
OpenBritain is set to become the UK's premier information service on accessible tourism as the two leading brands for disability information, OpenBritain and DisabledGo, come together, with over 50,000 inspected venues being supplied by DisabledGo to the www.openbritain.net website.
With the UN’s International Day of Disabled Persons on Thursday 3 December,
Scandic is continuing its commitment to disabled guests, not least through a new
service on the website where all the chain’s hotels report exactly what aids and
facilities they offer guests with a disability. During 2010, Scandic is also building
150 new rooms for disabled guests.
ENAT is pleased to present this short video from the ENAT Congress, made by Dirk Janczewski. It features interviews with delegates and short clips from presentations, giving a flavour of the event.
Within the framework of of the European Union's Operational Programme of Territorial Cooperation between Spain, France and Andorra 2007-2013 (Interreg IV A), the project Accessi Tourisme is a triennial project of cross-border cooperation on Accessible Tourism, between the Department of Turisme de Catalonia and its conterparts, the Departmental Committee of Eastern Pyrenees Tourism, and the Elsa Fundació NGO.
The ETCAATS project has two main aims: 1). to develop an online training course in accessible tourism from existing innovative content selected from previous Swedish work and supplemented with other international training materials; and 2). to develop a ‘Road map’ for an EU certification system for the area of accessible tourism vocational training, in line with the European Qualifications Framework. The target groups for the course include employers and personnel in the tourism industry.
The project aims to create new learning packages for on-line delivery, promote ’The Accessible City’ concept and improve the skills, knowledge and awareness of companies and employees associated with the tourism sector.
