Category: Travel and Tourism

ISO Standards for Tourism and Travel

A wheelchair user has access to the beach with the Council beach mat. Standards for tourism.
Photo courtesy Hobsons Bay City Council

Standards documents are rarely light reading. Similarly to legal documents they aren’t designed for skim reading. And they are rarely in plain language. However, if you can take the time to study standards and understand their structure, they are very helpful. The International Standards Organization (ISO) standards for tourism and travel are a case in point. 

Standard for Tourism and Related Services

Tourism is a global enterprise. It makes sense, therefore, for travellers to know what to expect when they go on holiday to any country. This is especially the case for people with disability. ISO recognises the economics of accessible and inclusive travel and consequently devised a standard. As an international standard it is possible to get some consistency across countries to support this growing industry. 

The title of the standard is, ISO Standard for Tourism and Related Services – Accessible tourism for all – requirements and recommendations. This document is based on the concept of ‘tourism for all”. The aim is to ensure equal access and enjoyment is experienced by everyone. It has key aspects of policy making, strategy, infrastructure, products and services in the tourism supply chain. A related standard is the Standard for Accessible Travel.

Standard for Accessible Travel

The ISO Standard for Accessible Travel has 5 key sections with sub-sections. 

    • The tourist office – When new to a city, often the first port of call is the tourist information office to make a plan of where to go and what to see. See the section on information offices and reception services. 
    • Accessibility every step of the journey – Most operators want people to enjoy their experiences. The guidelines for tourism and related services help operators with policy making, strategy, infrastructure, products and services. It’s about the whole tourism supply chain. It’s the overarching guide for tourism services.
    • Beaches for all –  the requirements and recommendations for beach operation is another subsection. It also outlines recommendations for the design of access ramps and boardwalks, toilets, showers and drinking fountains.
    • Tourism for all the senses – Braille is understood all over the world. There is a subsection on the application of Braille signage and for assistive products including tactile ground indicators. 
    • Accessibility in all standards – The Guide for addressing accessibility in standards is a standard for all other standards. Standards committees should be aware of this standard when they are devising a new standard or updating an old one. 

A toolkit from Ireland

The Centre for Excellence in Universal Design in Ireland’s toolkit on improving tourism business by applying the principles of universal design. The video below shows four case studies that reduced their complaints and increased their sales by following the advice in the toolkit which covers:

      • Business Objectives and Overview
      • Written Communication
      • Face-to-Face, Telephone & Video Communication
      • Electronic & Web Based Communication 

You can see more on the toolkit page of the CEUD website. There is also an Irish Standard, I.S.373:2013 “Universal Design for Customer Engagement in Tourism Services” available from SAI Global. 

 

 

Tactile or 3D?

A metal model showing a town layout in relief with Braille on buildings and streets. There is a church and lots of houses and a town square represented.Which type of map is best – tactile or 3D? Three researchers from Monash University carried out a study to see if 3D printed models offered more information than tactile graphics such as maps. There were some interesting findings that were presented in a conference paper. The abstract gives a good overview:

From the abstract

Tactile maps are widely used in Orientation and Mobility (O&M) training for people are blind or have low vision. Commodity 3D printers now offer an alternative way to present accessible graphics. However it is unclear if 3D models offer advantages over tactile equivalents for 2D graphics such as maps.

In a controlled study with 16 touch readers, we found that 3D models were preferred, enabled the use of more easily understood icons, facilitated better short term recall and allowed relative height of map elements to be more easily understood.

Analysis of hand movements revealed the use of novel strategies for systematic scanning of the 3D model and gaining an overview of the map. Finally, we explored how 3D printed maps can be augmented with interactive audio labels, replacing less practical braille labels. Our findings suggest that 3D printed maps do indeed offer advantages for O&M training. 

The full title of the paper is, “Accessible Maps for the Blind: Comparing 3D Printed Models with Tactile Graphics“.  The article is also available on ResearchGate. 

Access Chain inclusive design tool

An intrepid adventurer wandering in the wilderness might want the excitement of the unknown. Most of us want to know what to expect before we leave home, even for a day. For people who find everyday places inaccessible, excitement comes from knowing exactly what to expect at a new destination. That’s why the journey begins at home with information. The Sensory Trust in the UK developed an Access Chain inclusive design tool to help businesses see things from a visitor perspective.

The graphic below shows four key elements: the decision to visit, journey and arrival, on-site experience and return home.  The tool is to the point, clearly written and easy to follow. Each of the four steps is explained further.

Graphic showing the four key parts of the visitor travel chain in the Access Chain travel tool.

The last step is easy to forget, but a problem at this point can ruin a good day out. For example, a long walk back to the car or poorly signed routes aren’t great at the end of a tiring day. 

The Sensory Trust has more resources on their website. 

Information: A critical factor in inclusive tourism

A map of Europe with pins placed in capital cities and string lines linking them together.“The basic task of accessible tourism is to stop focusing on the features of disability and to concentrate on various social needs and adjusting the conditions of geographical (social and physical) space to them”.

This quote from a 2019 research paper sums up the situation well. The paper focuses on the information aspects of inclusive tourism, particularly online information. It reports on a case study and lists several “rules” for accessible tourist information. The author, Anna Kolodziejczak, laments the lack of consistency of language and description across the inclusive tourism platform. The conclusion sums up the issues well:

Visibility, reliability and up-to-date facts are the basic features of tourist information. However, due to the principles of both universal design and costs of publication it is advisable to include information on the accessibility of facilities and services in all publications intended for tourists. It ought to be emphasised that tourists, as main subjects of all activities aimed at enabling them to relax in the way they dream, need information at all stages of their journey. To this end, they use various databases of tourist information which, despite having many recipients, have also many creators. Only consistent and systematic cooperation of all information providers and the ability to react quickly to the needs of tourists can make the system work efficiently and the desired results will be achieved.”

The title of the paper is, Information as a factor of  the development of accessible tourism for people with disabilities.

 

Tourism Australia’s resources for accessible tourism

Front cover of Queensland inclusive tourism guide showing a man in a red shirt with his arms outstretched. Resources for accessible tourism.
Front cover Queensland Inclusive Tourism Guide

Tourism Australia has a list of resources for accessible tourism on their website. These resources are useful for both businesses and travellers. This is a growing sector and finally being recognised as an important part of the tourism economy. 

The resources for accessible tourism organisations are:

Accessible Tourism Toolkit 

Accessible Victoria 

Accessible Holiday Accommodation

Cangoeverywhere.com.au 

Getaboutable 

Inclusive Tourism (online training)

Inclusive Tourism: Economic Opportunities

PhotoAbility 

Queensland Inclusive Tourism Guide 

Studying in Australia 

Sydney for All 

TravAbility 

Travel For All 

Travellers Aid Australia 

Vision Australia 

Logo of Tourism Australia - Colourful kangaroo shape with blue upper case textTourism Australia explains accessible tourism as:

“Accessible tourism is the ongoing endeavour to ensure tourist destinations, products and services are accessible to all people, regardless of their physical limitations, disabilities or age.”

Understanding the opportunity for Australia in Accessible Tourism is a research study conducted in 2017. It is available on the Travability website.

 

The potential of accessible tourism in Australia

Header slide on accessible tourism showing a woman in a wheelchair bending down to feed a wallaby.
Photo courtesy Travability Images. http://travabilityimages.com.au

There’s a lot of potential for accessible tourism in Australia, and everyone stands to win, both operators and travellers. The business case has been well researched over many years and in different countries.  However, the data are not convincing many tourism operators to re-think their business model. 

Nicole Healy’s presentation at UD2021 Conference covered the facts and figures. Tourism Research Australia commissioned a research project which involved Victorian and Queensland governments. Nicole listed the research objectives which included: 

      • The size of the market and drivers and barriers
      • Needs of travellers with disability and their companions
      • The best communication channels 
      • The best ways to support businesses and explore opportunities

The results

The results show the potential of accessible tourism to be in the billions of dollars representing 10% of the total domestic spend. And that’s only for those who are willing to travel. Many others say it is all too hard. 

Travellers with and without disability choose trips for the same reasons. Eating out and visiting family or friends are top of the list for both groups. Sightseeing, pubs, clubs, and shopping are all popular. Going to the beach was not high on the list for people with disability. 

Lack of awareness of what’s on offer and not knowing what to expect were barriers to travel. Attitudes of tourism operators and staff was not encouraging either. Higher costs for people with disability were an issue as well as not enough accessible rooms.

Travellers with disability want to see better staff training and more practical information. Better access to toilets, public transport and airports were also important. More detail is available in Nicole’s presentation slides and the data report. You can download the executive summary of the Victorian and Queensland report.

Victoria has a kit to help businesses, and Queensland has their own guide to inclusive tourism. 

A separate website, Accessible Victoria has specific information and more links. And one specifically for Melbourne also has brief information and more links. 

There is more about inclusive tourism in the travel and tourism section of this website.

Hotels slow to provide accessibility

An accessible bathroom showing some nice design features rather than a standard public bathroom.
A better than average accessible bathroom
Not surprisingly, relatively wealthy countries have the best adapted hotels for accessibility. The US, Canada, Ireland, Qatar, Australia, Singapore and New Zealand come out top of each region’s list. That’s according to a study of Booking.com’s website of hotels. Despite government and community organisations promoting the need and benefits of inclusive tourism, hotels are slow to provide accessibility. A study using the international Booking.com data compares continents and countries for the level of hotel accessibility. The researchers worked with a sample of 31,868 hotels in the 100 most popular tourist destinations. They found some type of adaptation in 18,368. Even in the countries with the highest levels, wheelchair accessibility is only provided in 30%. Other features are just 5% or less.

Is it or isn’t it accessible? 

Booking.com is a popular website for booking tourist accommodation. It leads the market by having the greatest distribution of beds worldwide. In the filter search there is a section on accessibility features. However, the information is not always reliable because standards vary across international borders. Although an hotel states it is adapted or accessible there is no guarantees it is. This is why disability groups and individuals have set up their guides to accessible and inclusive tourism. They use the personal experiences of travellers to provide the access details that matter most. Examples are Travel Without Limits, Getaboutable, Access Advisor, and TravAbility.  The title of the article is, Accessibility in Inclusive Tourism? Hotels Distributed Through Online Channels.  The authors conclude that the “vast majority of the world’s hotel industry has serious deficiencies in accessibility”.  The accessible features included in the Booking.com filter search are: wheelchair accessible, toilet with grab rails, higher level toilet, lower bathroom sink, emergency cord in bathroom, Braille, tactile signs, auditory guidance.  The hotels themselves provide the information on Booking.com. So, the information is not always reliable.  The Inclusive Hotels Network has published a guide for including people with hearing loss. The guide includes the business case, customer profiles, fixtures and fittings, technology, customer service and management systems.  

Accessible tourism: From charity to business

Hotel bedroom with polished floors, orange and red pillows on a couch and textured wallpaperHotels in Australia are required to have a percentage of rooms that offer accessible accommodation. Hotel managers generally refer to these rooms as “disabled rooms” and think the job of access is done and dusted. Little thought is given to other hotel facilities. This is where legislation brings compliance but not inclusion. It is still a matter of non-disabled people doing “special” things for disabled people. A charity approach is no longer good business.  A book chapter explores the issues reflecting on equity in terms of sustainable development. The aim of sustainable development is to meet the needs of the present generation without compromising the needs of future generations.  The author considers different approaches to the issue of social participation. Charities began the “special” recreational activities and social enterprises developed them further. The commercial uptake of these activities still has a way to go. The concept of “reverse integration” is introduced and discussed. The title of the book chapter is, Accessible and equitable tourism services for travelers with disabilities: From a charitable to a commercial footing. It is free to download from ResearchGate.

Abstract

Until recently, charities and nonprofits have been the primary providers of recreational services for persons with disabilities (PwD). Increased pressure for a self-sustaining financial existence, as well as the acknowledgment of the value that the market of PwD has, have led to such services increasingly finding their way in competitive commercial environments as well. The chapter traces the development of inclusive holidays for persons with and without visual impairment based on sighted guiding from the historical changes in the understanding of the concept of disability as well as the provision of recreational and tourism services for PwD. The author argues that reverse integration  –  the approach that these holidays follow  –  is a viable and efficient way of offering equitable tourism services, particularly when businesses embrace social entrepreneurship. The chapter is built on the assumption that offering accessible and equitable tourism products for PwD is an integral element of corporate sustainability and responsibility in the tourism industry.
Citation: Tomej, K. (2019). Accessible and equitable tourism services for travelers with disabilities: From a charitable to a commercial footing. In D. Lund-Durlacher, V. Dinica, D. Reiser, & M. Fifka (Eds.), Corporate Sustainability and Responsibility in Tourism: A Transformative Concept (pp. 65-78). Springer Nature

Customers talk: Tourist businesses listen?

A woman in a yellow jacket is being assisted onto the tour bus by two men up a ramp.Word of mouth is a powerful marketing tool. So what customers talk about when they share their tourist activities is important information. But what do they talk about and how can destination businesses listen to this information?  A study published in Current Issues in Tourism looks at customer to customer (C2C) co-creation of inclusive tourism. The study was carried out in a heritage context. The perceptions of customers with disability were interviewed and observed. The aim was to identify what was of value in terms of inclusion or exclusion. The bottom line, as is almost always the case, is to involve users in designing the visitor experience. It’s a basic tenet of universal design. The title of the paper is, C2C co-creation of inclusive tourism experiences for customers with disability in a shared heritage context experience. You can ask the authors for a copy on ResearchGate. If you have institutional access, it is available online from Taylor & Francis. Abstract:  This study explores customer-to-customer (C2C) social co-creation practices in tourism when customers with and without disability share a heritage service environment. Despite a growing prevalence of heritage- and disability-related research in the tourism literature, few scholars have examined the phenomena from the emergent customer-dominant logic (CDL) perspective. This study makes empirical use of the perceptions of customers with disabilities (CwD) in a recent process of co-creation of CDL within the context of heritage sites through qualitative ethnographic techniques, interviews and observation methods. A sample of 125 individuals with and without disabilities participated in the fieldwork. The objective was to identify C2C social practices that occur among CwD and their related value, leading to either inclusion or exclusion. The results reveal the importance of focusing on C2C co-creation opportunities which create a value outcome. This paper provides heritage managers with clear guidance for creating inclusive and enabling servicescapes.

Tourism promotion: representing people with disability

two people stand in front of racks of tourism brochures.Promotional material continues to under-represent the diversity of the population. We’ve been so used to seeing white faces in advertisements that to see anything other is a surprise. But is that the response marketing experts want? Then there are the stereotypical images, especially related to older people and people with disability. People with disability also like to travel, often within a family group. So how well are these, and other groups, represented in promotional material?   A recent research project in the US critically assessed promotional materials: brochures, rack cards, websites and online booking platforms. They found that fifty per cent mentioned disability in some form. This included “disabled” and “handicapped”, “wheelchair” and “special needs”. They found that outdated language remained the norm. Indeed, some language was considered harmful for people with disability.  The title of the article is, Beyond accessibility: exploring the representation of people with disabilities in tourism promotional materials.  The article covers some important ground in the area of inclusive tourism. Promotional material gives an impression of a destination or venue. Visual and textural representations were either absent or stereotypical. Industry as a whole has been slow to respond to what is estimated to be 25% of the prospective market. Their promotional material reinforces their lack of interest in this market.

Abstract

Globally, over one billion people experience some form of disability. The number of people with disabilities (PWDs) continues to rise due to an ageing population, the spread of chronic diseases, and improvements in measuring disabilities. However, tourism promotional materials continue to perpetuate a homogenous gaze catering to non-disabled audiences. Thus, informed by critical disability theory, and an inclusive tourism approach, this study explores how PWDs are represented in tourism promotional materials, specifically tourism brochures, from the American Southeast. Through a content analysis of over 200 county level brochures from nine south eastern states and interviews with state level tourism marketing directors, three emergent themes were identified: ADA compliant is ‘good enough’; ‘Diversity’ means including more people of color or ‘ethnic’ groups; and Pets are welcomed but how about PWDs? The findings offer insights for inclusive tourism and breaking down the physical and psychological barriers that hinder PWD participation in travel and tourism.

Accessible Acropolis: Heritage meets Access

A wide and level pathway leads to the Parthenon on the Acropolis. Heritage meets access.If Greece can make one of their most ancient heritage sites accessible then there are no excuses for others. Besides, everyone should have the opportunity to share in a nation’s culture and heritage. Smooth surfaces and lots of free space makes a visit to the famous Acropolis enjoyable for everyone.  The project was not approached from a maintenance perspective; that is, upgrading paths built at least fifty years ago. The pathways follow archaeological findings over the years, restoring the ancient route of the Panathenaic Way.  The brief article in the Greek Reporter provides a little more information with two videos. An explanatory video is in Greek and without English subtitles. However, the four minute video gives a good idea of the access improvements regardless of language. A new lift replaces the one installed for the Paralympic and Olympic Games in 2004. Good news for those who visited Athens for the Games.  However, not everyone agreed to the changes to make the place more accessible. 

Heritage, Access and Ancient Greece

Illustration of a Greek temple reconstruction showing a ramped entrance.Ancient Greece is well known for its many temples and healing sanctuaries. Hence, we have evidence that the ancient Greeks thought about access ramps. They made an architectural choice without legislation. However, it wouldn’t make sense to design and build a healing sanctuary that excluded the very people it was designed for. An article by Debby Sneed discusses the history and ancient sites from the perspective of access, illness, injury and disability. She shows that disablement features in ancient Greek icons, art and sculpture. This is an indicator that disability was considered relatively normal in society. There were no attempts to hide it.  An interesting history of ramps and ground level construction at healing sanctuaries. It includes details of various sites and discusses why some have ramps and others not. Sneed concludes that if the ancient Greeks gave thought to their disabled community, it’s important we do too. The title of the article is, The architecture of access: ramps at ancient Greek healing sanctuaries   

Abstract

Ancient Greece is well known for its many temples and sanctuaries, including several dedicated to healing and associated cults. Informed by disability studies, this article analyses the architecture of public spaces and facilities, alongside epigraphic, iconographic and literary evidence, to argue that the ancient Greeks sought to ensure the accessibility of healing sanctuaries. Even without a framework of civil rights as we understand them today, the builders of these sites made architectural choices that enabled individuals with impaired mobility to access these spaces. It is hoped that this research may stimulate further investigations into accessibility at other sites in the Classical world and beyond.