REIMAGINE ACCESSIBLE TRAVEL DESTINATIONS = A PLACE WITHOUT BARRIERS FOR EVERYONE - Jem Golden

Special thanks to editor, Gráinne Cumbers

Special thanks for key insights into barriers to travel, Professor Deborah Golden

A number of years ago I was hired as a strategic research consultant by a leading European tourist destination wanting to refocus and reposition their image by capitalising on long-term, sustainable trends in travel that my team had identified. A key concept I put forward was?- accessibility for all visitors - and I advised strongly to the destination not to characterise consumers or people with disabilities (PwD) as ‘niche’ but rather to cater for people of all abilities as part of their standard travel industry planning, infrastructure and operations.

Ethical, inclusive policies were of course paramount in this recommendation but it was persuasive to consider the economic benefits of accessible travel also and these were shown to this client to be enormous and increasing year by year as our societies age rapidly.

Travellers needing [but not necessarily receiving] accessible support, often of a very straight forward nature in order to ensure a safe and fulfilling experience have been forecast to represent at least 25% of the total international travel market by 2025.

For example, the destination I was advising is hugely popular with multi-generational visitors travelling together including grandparents often coming over with their grandchildren every year because they loved it so much. The ‘older adult’ segment I concluded was worth hundreds of million Euro a year in revenue but was most definitely not being adequately supported in terms of providing accessibility even at the most rudimentary level. For instance, there was very limited accessible transportation to and from the airport; there were physical barriers at many heritage sites; and the majority of hotel accommodation had no training, expertise or motivation to cater for guests that were not fully abled.

An obvious point here is that cities or regions which are attuned to being more accessible will hugely enhance local residents' quality of life especially as they age, as well as visitors. ?Thinking about improving the tourist industry should always take the local community into mind. Destinations need remind themselves that reduced mobility can affect pretty much anyone. People fall off their bicycles, hurt themselves playing football, slip on ice; experience osteoarthritis - the list is endless. It doesn’t matter whether your mobility is reduced for six weeks, six months, or a lifetime. We all want to keep our life exciting and enjoy places to visit.

Over the coming weeks, I will post short case studies on LinkedIn for the Flanders region (Belgium), Vienna, Tyrol and Kyoto. These destinations offer very different approaches to promote accessibility in public spaces for residents and visitors in creative and humane ways and are worth emulating by other less accessibility-friendly destinations.

The nature and range of barriers that affect tourism participation among people with disabilities (PwD) is far more subtle and complex than often portrayed. It is common for this group to be treated as a single homogeneous group facing similar constraints that can be resolved with similar solutions. Such assumptions are strongly entrenched in the tourist industry who have little or no experience with this community;?to an extent this ignorance is also shared by many government tourism agencies, even while they ?are keen to be seen as socially-responsible tourism and promote themselves as such.

People with different types of disability – mobility, cognitive, sensory - will face challenges that are unique to their type. Thus, what may be a critical issue for someone with one type of disability, may be irrelevant to someone else with a different type.?

For example, those who have mobility issues and use wheelchairs have specific requirements for accommodation (e.g. roll-in shower); people who are hard of hearing do not need those types of support but they too require ?assistive technologies which are transforming communication for these groups and providing new opportunities for embodied tourism experiences (e.g. real-time captioning). In addition, for the hearing-impaired more personalised communication is needed when travelling since ?announcements about flight and train arrivals may not be heard. Text messaging has provided a service enhancement for this group that many travel companies adopt as standard practice.

Inclusive tourism needs to be responsive to people with mobility issues as well as cognitive, sensory and communication challenges.?Providing accessibility to PwD may seem daunting and a large investment and therefore a strong deterrent for the travel industry coming under huge pressure to be profitable, sustainable and competitive in this ‘almost post-COVID’ era.

However, I would appeal to the travel industry to please be more open minded in this regard and also to consider the ‘positive amplification of small effects’ in starting to make small, benign changes to the environment such as providing more and higher-quality resting places that are easy to get in and out of, more toilets particularly in green public spaces, e.g. botanical gardens, national parks, and clearer, larger signs everywhere.

For PwD, the lack of information and the trustworthiness of such information have been identified as major barriers to travel. The level of detail supplied and accuracy of information affect all stages of the travel planning process, because what is publicised as being accessible by the service provider, in reality it is not always accessible, especially in the hotel sector. Hotel rooms may promote themselves as being accessible yet on arrival the client discovers that they are only partially accessible, or so-called accessible facilities are located in remote or out-of-the-way places. As highlighted, a future article will look at best practices in universal design in the hotel sector and how these features are effectively communicated to the general public.

It is obviously critical for travel destinations and services to communicate openly about obstacles and alternatives available. If it is known that it is not fully accessible, it needs to be stated. Visitors can then set expectations and decide if it is feasible and worthwhile to participate.

The summary table below provides the key considerations or priorities for a destination to provide a virtuous chain of accessibility across the range of services for travellers. In the case studies in later articles we will explore these concepts in greater detail.?

Above concept: Jem Golden, Design: Edwar Chacón – please use with permission

To conclude, it is imperative that PwD can provide input at early stages on accessible supports to be provided; to test these and recommend improvements?as well as consult with PwD on how best to present and communicate to the public about it.??

Sources for this article

Accessible tourism and sustainability – a case study published in Journal of Sustainable Tourism by Darcy, Cameron and Pegg

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09669581003690668

Re-Contextualizing Barriers to Travel by People with Disabilities. Tourism Management Perspectives by Darcy and McKercher

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tmp.2018.01.003

Graphic designer, brand identity consultant: Edwar Chacón

LI Profile: https://www.dhirubhai.net/in/edwar-graphic-designer/