27 September is World Tourism Day! Tourism for All! The UNWTO calls on tourism actors and stakeholders to spread the word of both the importance and immense benefits universal accessibility has and can bring to society at large. #tourism4all #WTD2016
The headquarters of the Official College of Architects of Madrid (COAM), hosted this past Wednesday September 16th the Conference "Present and Future of Accessible Tourism in Spain" organized by the Spanish Network for Accessible Tourism (Red Estable), an association that brings together more than 100 entities and that acts as a focus for promoting and fostering the Accessible Tourism for everyone in Spain.
Following a successful pilot project in 2013 and 2014 with four destinations – Visit Bath, goLeicestershire, NewcastleGateshead and VisitBrighton, the national tourist authority, VisitEngland accessed funding from the European Commission to expand its Access for All initiative.
14 September 2015: VisitEngland, the national tourist board, is today launching a new Access for All campaign, aimed to raise awareness of accessible destinations and businesses in England; informing disabled people of accommodation and visitor attractions when planning a day trip or holiday.
Slides accompanying the Keynote speech given by Ivor Ambrose, Managing Director, ENAT at an event organised by The Executive Council of the Municipality of Dubai on 11-12 October 2015. (Only available to ENAT Members).
This is the Final Report of a wide-ranging study of accessible tourism supply commissioned by the EC Tourism Unit. The study included: visitor and supplier surveys, national legislation review, expert reviews, Web-based research and analysis of accessibility information, transport, infrastructure/facilities and services. Fifteen case studies of accessible tourism destinations were carried out, identifying good practices in business and destination development.
These 15 Case Studies of Accessible Tourism Destinations were commissioned in 2013 by the European Commission as part of the research tender awarded to EWORX S.A., ENAT and VVA, examining the supply side of accessible tourism in Europe.
THE PROJECT N.O. BARRIER, funded within the ETCP Programme Greece – Italy 2007 - 2013 Axis III Measure 3.3, has been created with the overall objective to increase accessible tourism in the Region of Puglia (Italy) and Region of Western Greece and the Ionaian Islands (Greece).
Project STRING is a transnational cooperation initiative to be implemented by 12 partners from 6 countries. It aims to create 9 fully accessible itineraries respectively in Italy (Piedmont Regione), Spain (Ávila) and Bulgaria (Sozopol) which will then be developed into comprehensive tourist packages. Such packages will be put on the market, by Tour Operators through Travel Agency, singular or in composable modular box that allow customers to make their preferred combination.
The Access for All project, led by VisitEngland, will develop and promote 7 high quality accessible tourism itineraries. It will do this by:
• supporting tourism businesses through an ‘Access for All Development Process’ to improve information, customer service and facilities for the benefit of people with access needs.
• delivering a mainstream national marketing campaign
It will increase opportunities for people with access needs to take a short break giving them confidence in the accessibility of tourism products and services. Awareness of accessible destinations will be increased improving perceptions of Accessible England and Europe.
ACCESSTOUR is an acronym expressing accessible tourism in a short way. Accessible tourism could be considered disadvantaged in comparison with more traditional mass tourism. In the last years accessible tourism has become synonym of high quality care for persons with special needs and accessible destinations. The project aims at marking out the special qualities of accessibility implemented with effective and user friendly services.
The project "Cosy for You", supported by a web site and a mobile application (C4Y mobile app.) consists in the dissemination of "knowledge" of places, travel goods and services accessible at 360° in the Campania Region, in the South of Italy, starting with five different destinations: Napoli, Pozzuoli and "Campi Flegrei", Sorrento and the Sorrentine peninsula, Vesuvius area and Benevento, including 14 itineraries. It is proposed as best practice to other public and private institutions active in tourism in Italy and worldwide.
