OSSATE Inventory of Accessible Tourism Information Schemes

This report presents an Inventory of accessibility schemes and data sets within the EU-tourism sector.

The purpose of this report is to give an overview of 1). the different accessibility schemes within the EU and the influence of national policies on these schemes, and 2). the existing European tourism databases, including their basic characteristics and features.

The report gives a review of the existing tourism accessibility information systems in EU Member States. This permits the elaboration of a set of generic requirements for the planned system. Primarily, the working method requires the development of an analytical framework for the classification of data standards in order to handle information from many sources and of many kinds. These include: physical environment and building access standards and dimensional criteria; venue-, site- and accommodation-specific criteria; language/translation requirements; user-personalisation requirements, and others.

More specifically, this report:

• Describes the background of information on Accessible Tourism Information Schemes.
• Identifies and analyses country policies and legislation on accessibility.
• Identifies and analyses national, regional and local information schemes on accessibility of tourist venues, sites and accommodation.
• Identifies some ‘good practice’ information schemes
• Defines a selection of ‘desirable’ features for a future European Service
• Identifies the information provision of some of the big tourism players in Europe.

An Annex to the report has also been prepared, showing a selection of typical web-based information schemes.

The inventory report contributed to the development of the EU-funded pan-European accessibility information service for the tourism sector:
www.EuropeforAll.com

The OSSATE project was completed in 2007. The OSSATE Website is closed.