Brussels, 6 June 2014. At the EU Tourism Stakeholders' Conference, "Mind the Accessibility Gap", Mr Pedro Ortún, Director for Service Industries, Directorate General Enterprise and Industry declared that accessibility is to be a permanent element of the EU's future tourism policies.
New York City's Taxi and Limousine Commission unanimously approved a proposal Wednesday April 30th to add a 30-cent surcharge on rides to offset the costs of making cabs more accessible to wheelchairs.
European Tourism representatives gathered at the 57th Meeting of the UNWTO Commission for Europe identified enhanced international cooperation, innovation, private-public partnerships and accessibility as main priorities to ensure the sector's future competiveness. The Seminar on Developing Effective Tourism Clusters, held in on the sidelines of the Meeting, laid the ground for innovative collaborative approaches for sustainable tourism development in Europe (3-4 April, Baku, Azerbaijan).
At MITA International Meeting for Accessible Tourism OF GITANDO.ALL - The basis for the development of accessible tourism and leading European tourism.
(Madrid, Spain, 26 February 2014). The protection of children from all forms of exploitation, the fight against trafficking, anti-poaching and accessible tourism for all are among the work priorities defined by the newly formed World Committee on Tourism Ethics (WCTE). The Committee met at UNWTO headquarters to identify the major challenges facing responsible tourism and define its Action Plan for the coming four years.
“Accessible tourism” was the theme of excellence for the 2013 EDEN competition. Destinations awarded under this theme have succesfully implemented a tourism offer based on an overall approach to accessibility for tourists regardless of their special needs, limitations, disabilities or age. View the list of 19 national winners.
On November 6th, Visit Flanders was awarded the ‘Amadeus & WTM Travel Experience Award’ for its provision in Accessible Tourism. The judges praised the efforts that Flanders has made to become an accessible holiday destination for everyone, particularly for Flanders Fields, prior to the Great War Commemoration.
The Italian version of “ECA 2013 – European Concept for Accessibility. Design for all in progress. From theory to practice” is now available. It has been realised by the Consorzio Sociale Coin in Rome and contains a foreword by the Italian Minister of Labour and Social Policies. The document has already been translated to German and Serbian from its original English version.
On 6 June 2014 the European Commission, DG Enterprise and Industry, Tourism and Cultural Instruments Unit held a conference for tourism stakeholders where the results of three specially commissioned studies on Tourism Accessibility in Europe were presented and discussed by a distinguished panel of tourism practitioners and stakeholders. Speakers' presentations are available for download on this page in PDF format.
