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.
New figures released by VisitEngland from the UK Tourism Survey show that overnight trips made by, or accompanied by, someone with a health condition or impairment contributed almost £1bn to the English domestic visitor economy in the first 6 months of the year, accounting for 5.7 million trips in total.
At the 5th European Forum of Social Tourism, which took place in Malaga Spain, from 15 to 17 October, BITS – the International Bureau of Social Tourism and ENAT – the European Network for Accessible Tourism, signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), with a view to establishing closer cooperation between the two associations.
The EU funded MEDIATE project aims to establish a common European methodology for measuring accessibility to public transport. In order to create a good practice guide, towns and cities are asked to fill in a questionnaire if they believe that they have examples of good practice. The data they provide will form the basis of the Guide.
Presentation by Ivor Ambrose, Managing Director of ENAT, at the "Accessi Tourisme Simposium. Building Accessible Destinations", Autonomous University of Barcelona, Spain.
This Guide presents a selection of 19 destinations which offer a full range of adapted tourist resources so that everyone has the chance to enjoy Catalonia's important cultural heritage, its impressive landscapes, its rich gastronomy, and even sporting activities.
Population projections are what-if scenarios that aim to provide information about the likely future size and structure of the population. Eurostat’s population projections convergence scenario is one of several possible population change scenarios based on assumptions for fertility,mortality and migration. The EU27 population is projected to become older with the median age projected to rise from 40.4 years in 2008 to 47.9 years in 2060.
This report provides a description of underlying macroeconomic assumptions and projection methodologies of the age-related expenditure projections for all Member States over the period 2009-2060. On the basis of these underlying assumptions and methodologies, age-related expenditures covering pensions, health care, long-term care, education and unemployment transfers are envisaged to be presented to the ECOFIN Council in May 2009.
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.