Travel and Tourism Archives

Accessible 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

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.

Come-In! Guidelines for Museums

Not all museums are grand institutions such as the British Museum. Volunteers run many small museums which rely on donations and entry fees. So, upgrading premises, exhibits and interpretive signage to be accessible to all poses challenges. But legal obligations require adjustments to provide accessibility. It also means that people with disability can join as volunteers more easily. The Come-In! Guidelines from Europe tackles some of the issues for small and medium-sized museums.

Come-in! Guidelines provide a practical way forward for small and medium-sized museums. It lays down some principles to guide processes and to meet legal obligations. Language, the “service chain” and staff training are the key aspects of the guidance.

The principles include:

- Disabled people have a right to be included in all the activities of museums and galleries.
- Museums and galleries should engage in a dialogue with people with disabilities to find out what they need and wish, and how to deliver it.
- Identify barriers to access for people with disability and remove them
- Universal design principles should be the basis for inclusive practice in museums and galleries.
- Adopt inclusive practice to ensure disability issues are included in all areas of a museum or gallery’s activities.
- This process must be ongoing, long-term, achievable and sustainable. The museum’s policies and strategic planning should reflect inclusive practice.

The European Union acknowledges its obligations under the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. The information in this guideline is good for any attraction or tourist destination. The Come-In! Guidelines are detailed and practical, and not just policy words.

If you have difficulty downloading the document from Academia, you can download the PDF directly.

The graphic is from the Guidelines.

Social Tourism is inclusive tourism

A group of colourfully dressed children sit around the edge of the classroom. There are posters on the wall with Spanish writing. This is one aspect of social tourism. — Tourists visit a rural school in Peru

Getting away from it all is something we all need for our health and wellbeing. But not everyone has the means of doing this. Being excluded as a tourist goes beyond physical and other levels of capability. It extends to people without the money to have a holiday. But it goes further than that. In developed countries the concept is applied to people looking for low cost tourism. In developing countries the focus is on the visited community rather than the visitor. This is “social tourism”.

The concept of social tourism has changed over time. It can help both the visitor and the visited community under the banner of Tourism for All. Socially sustainable tourism, community-based tourism and volunteering tourism have also fallen under the banner of social tourism. Consequently, in the literature, it is not clearly expressed as tourism for people who are disadvantaged.

The title of the article is, Inclusions and Exclusions of Social Tourism. Also available from ResearchGate where you can find related articles.

From the abstract

This study attempts to describe three aspects of social tourism: (a) how it is perceived in different socio-cultural and geographical settings; (b) what are the excluded elements of social tourism; and (c) change in demography of potential socially excluded groups. The study also explains the trends of special forms of tourism and its relevance to social tourism inclusion.

See also the book, Handbook of Social Tourism. The synopsis reads, “This thought-provoking Handbook considers the impact and challenges that social tourism has on people’s lives, integrating case studies from around the world. Showcasing the latest research on the topic and its role in tackling the challenges of tourism development, chapters explore the opportunities presented by social tourism and illustrate the social imperative of tourism as a force for good”.

Queensland Inclusive Tourism Guide

The introduction to the Queensland Government’s guide, Inclusive Tourism: Making your business more accessible and inclusive, begins, “This guide has been developed primarily for tourism operators, to help them:

- increase their knowledge about the market for accessible tourism
- develop strategies to improve the accessibility of their operation to appeal to a wider range of visitors of all abilities and ages
- understand their legal obligations in relation to inclusive and accessible tourism.

The guide also includes information to assist people with disability in planning a holiday. Local government can use this guide to: support and promote inclusive tourism across businesses, festivals, events and public spaces; and to incorporate inclusive and accessible design into their design codes and planning guidelines.

Download the 2017 Inclusive Tourism Guide from the link on the Queensland Government website.

See also the 2017 UTS Inclusive Tourism publication explaining the economics of inclusive tourism.

Dementia-friendly tourism: a guide

Making your accommodation, business or tourist attraction dementia-friendly is not difficult. It just takes a bit of extra thought. Once you get the idea of what sorts of things matter, it becomes easy to do.

A guide from the Visit England project covers these topics so business can understand and prepare for people with dementia, and their families. It’s easy to read with really simple things to do that will help, such as a simple bedside clock, avoiding shiny reflective surfaces, and wild bold patterns for bed covers and carpets. Case studies highlight the value of these small but important details. 30 pages including lots of pictures. The guide includes sections on:

Why become dementia friendly
What is dementia?
Living well with dementia
Information
People
Place
What can I do next?

Dementia inclusive tourism

A literature review examined how well tourism industries are recognising neurodiverse audiences. Including people living with dementia expands the customer base and contributes to customer wellbeing.

People living with dementia, including carers, have leisure lives but there are many barriers to activities. The review is extensive and frames recommendations for:

- travel and holidays,
- taking trips in the car
- transport terminals and interchanges
- air travel
- Cruising
- Hospitality and accommodation

The title of the 2024 review is, Dementia as a global challenge: Progress and prospects for creating more dementia-inclusive tourism industries.

From the abstract

Global Grand Challenges (GCs) have received only a limited attention within the tourism literature. This Progress paper examines one such GC – dementia and the contribution that tourism research can make to helping people live well with dementia.

Using the concept of the visitor journey and the social model of disability, the paper reviews progress towards creating a more dementia-inclusive society. Using the auspices of tourism research, we review the contributions to date and where the interconnections with dementia and tourism exist.

The review draws from a wide interdisciplinary framework including health, medicine, travel medicine and leisure. We argue for a greater use of transdisciplinary approaches to address GCs.

Accessible Tourism – Is that Inclusive?

There’s a growing realisation that accessibility does not equal inclusion. Getting in and out of somewhere is only the beginning. Being able to participate on an equal basis requires inclusive thinking and design. This includes the tourism sector. Being accessible is not the same as being inclusive.

Martin Heng, formerly of Lonely Planet, has an article in New Mobility that addresses this issue from a tourism perspective. He argues that the term “Accessible Tourism” is unhelpful. It has helped identify a market segment in economic terms, and some operators are on board. But it only goes so far. Change is slow and piecemeal.

Heng’s article is titled, “It’s Time to Move Beyond Access to Inclusion“. He concludes his article by saying we need to go beyond market segment ideas. We need to encourage the tourism industry to adopt an inclusive mindset.

Language and labelling is important. Choosing the right terms can make a big difference. “Accessible” is strongly linked with disability – particularly wheelchair users. “Inclusive” makes us think more broadly – families, people from diverse backgrounds, children and older people.

There are more articles and guidelines on inclusive tourism on this website.

Image courtesy of New Mobility showing Martin Heng interacting with an elephant.

Inclusive Towns: business, tourism and employment

The Inclusive Towns project was about increasing the participation and inclusion of people with disability as customers and employees in small business. The project was a partnership between the City of Greater Bendigo, Loddon Shire & Mount Alexander Shire in Victoria. Initially, the project was supported by a website, but this has been replaced by the Inclusive Towns Guide. The booklet has information business, tourism and employment. Three key areas are inclusive communication, physical environment and disability awareness. The guide is about:

• Why Inclusive Towns is important for your business
• Your legal responsibilities
• Disability statistics
• Tips on how your business can be more accessible and inclusive
• How you can use the Inclusive Towns logo
• Where you can go to get more information

You can find more articles on accessible and inclusive tourism on this website.

Inclusive Outdoor Recreation

What does the international research on accessible nature-based tourism say? That’s what researchers in Sweden checked out. Nine major themes emerged for inclusive outdoor recreation:

1. 1. employee attitudes towards people with disability
  2. accessibility of tourism websites and information systems
  3. accessible transportation, accommodation and tourist attractions
  4. technical solutions
  5. experience, motivations and constraints in tourism settings for people with disability
  6. tourism for the families and carers of people with disability
  7. tourism and leisure activities for older people
  8. the accessible tourism market
  9. nature-based tourism and outdoor recreation

This review found that existing research took the perspective of the consumer rather than the tourism operator. The report goes into more detail on the nine factors. It includes evidence from USA, Europe, UK and Sweden. The title of the report is, Enhancing Accessibility in Tourism & Outdoor Recreation: A Review of Major Research Themes and a Glance at Best Practice.

An very academic article, but with important findings. The key point – we need more research on businesses rather than consumers.

Access to natural waterfronts

Natural landscapes generally receive less attention than landscape architecture. So it is good to see that three Hungarian researchers have taken a serious look at the issues. Their study took the perspective of tourism and looked at tourist habits. They list some of the factors that need to be specifically considered for access to natural waterfront landscapes, including beaches.

The list of factors covers mobility, vision, and hearing. Parking and approach, jetties, pontoons, bathing, and fishing are all discussed. Several photographs show good examples of accessibility.

“If inclusive design and nature conservation principles are taken into consideration from the very beginning of the whole design process, access to waterfront landscapes can be spreaded [sic], and the natural values of the landscape remain existing and provide the experience of nature for the human race.”

The title of the article is “Access to Waterfront Landscapes for Tourists Living with Disabilities “ by Gabriella Szaszák , Albert Fekete and Tibor Kecskés. It’s open access.

Older people value outdoor spaces

What makes a city or community age-friendly? The World Health Organization has researched this and produced a comprehensive guide. But sometimes it pays to drill down to the detail at a more local level. Older adults’ perceptions of public spaces could be different to younger people. A research paper from Stockholm looked at green spaces, transport infrastructure and urban development and growth. The methods included visual methods and focus groups. The title of the paper is Promoting ‘Age-Friendly’ Cities: Assessing Elderly Perceptions of Public Spaces.

The report concludes that respondents gave a high degree of importance to green spaces, features that promote continuity and connection to local histories. Spaces that encourage social interaction were also important. Loss of identity or character of buildings, as well as being inaccessible and poorly lit, added to feelings of discomfort. Image by Maria Michelle.

Swim, Sail, Relax

Having fun in the sand and surf is the iconic Australian pastime. But not everyone gets an opportunity to join in the fun and swim, sail and relax. The Association of Consultants in Access, Australia newsletter features articles and case studies on beach access, sailing, a resort for people with spinal cord injury, and provisions for people with autism. Plus the general news of the association. The articles mainly feature specialist activities and designs, such as the resort. But that is all part of creating an inclusive society.

The 2020 newsletter is available online where you can view online through Issuu magazine.

Beaches and water

The 2023 access consultants association magazine, Insight, is all about beaches, water and access. The lead article by Jane Bryce looks at the damage done by storms and the erosion of once accessible beach access.

Derek Mah covers the accessibility of aquatic facilities from an architect’s perspective. Access for swimming pools was first introduced in 2011. But the standard for the public domain (AS1428.1) is inadequate for ramps and stairs in pools. Mah discusses the issues of design and certification of swimming pools and some of the assistive equipment.

Howard Moutrie adds the technical insights and background information. Swimming pools are covered in the National Construction Code when it is part of another building. But there are exceptions. Swimming pools can be part of an apartment complex, an hotel, and a regular back yard. This is where it all gets tricky. Howard works his way through these in the article.

Related to outdoor recreation is Agri-Tourism

A well designed conference poster published by Ohio State University encapsulates the key points.

The poster poses this question: “Ohio has almost 700 farms with an agritourism feature, which brings visitors to vineyards, orchards, and corn mazes, but are these farms welcoming to everyone?” Using photos it explains how to make farms and vineyards more accessible to everyone. Tasmania also has an Agritourism Strategy, but it doesn’t say anything about inclusion and accessibility.

Visitable Victoria

Listed as one of the world’s most liveable cities, Melbourne is now aiming to be the most visitable. Visit Victoria and Destination Melbourne have produced resources for both business and visitors. For businesses yet to get on board with being visitable, the individual visitor pages serve as examples of what to look for and what actions to take.
Accessible Tourism – it’s your business resource kit has six short chapters with case studies:

Discover what you are missing
Explore your local area
Make low cost changes
Assess your building a facilities
Describe your business
Promote your business
Develop a business plan

The PDF version of the kit with graphics has not thought about accessibility of the document in terms of font contrast. However, the Word version addresses this and also reminds us that not all people can access a PDF document.

The Word version cuts out all the graphics and is not only more accessible for screen readers, it is also a better version for printing pages for checklists.

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

Inclusive Tourism Language: Still taboo?

The tourism sector continues to follow the medical model of disability where it’s the fault of the individual’s body rather than the design of the world around them. This approach affects the language used in promotional material. It also reinforces the mistaken idea that accessible “products” need to be special and separate. Stefania Gandin’s article looks at the language used in the tourism sector and the way tourism and travel is promoted. Understanding the social model of disability could help operators understand it is more than just catering to a particular physical condition. It is a matter of thinking of disability as a human characteristic and not being afraid to talk about it in promotional material and websites. Or, of developing only specialised disability-specific products as being “accessible tourism”. The underpinning principle of inclusive tourism is being able to independently enjoy holiday or leisure time without any barriers or problems. The move from the terminology of “accessible” tourism to “inclusive” tourism could also help.

There will always be a need for specialist tourism products, particularly for people with physical disabilities who want adventure activities. But this does not take account of everyone, including people with health conditions who want to travel in groups. After all, many disabilities are invisible.

The title of the chapter is, Tourism, Promotion and Disability: Still a (Linguistic) Taboo? A Preliminary Study. The chapter is from Innovative Perspectives on Tourism Discourse and can be purchased separately. It can also be accessed via ResearchGate where you can ask the author for a copy.

Abstract: This study illustrates the preliminary results of a corpus-based analysis aimed at discovering the main linguistic features characterising the promotion of tourism for special-needs travellers. Even if accessible tourism represents an important sector in the market, not only for its social and moral importance but also for its strong economic potential, detailed research on the linguistic properties of tourism for disabled people is still rather limited and mainly tends to focus on the problems of physical access rather than considering the ways to improve its promotional strategies. Through a comparative corpus-based analysis, this paper will investigate the relevant linguistic features of a corpus of promotional materials advertising holidays and tourist services for the disabled, and relate them to the communicative strategies of two other corpora dedicated to the standard and translational language of tourism. The aim of this research is to show how mainstream tourism discourse still considers disability as a taboo topic, mostly ignoring or vaguely mentioning it in the general promotion of tourist destinations. The study will also attempt to suggest new linguistic and social attitudes aimed at stylistically improving and further including the accessible tourism sector within the overall tourism promotion.

Tourism Australia and accessibility

Tourism Australia has a web page titled Accessible Tourism. It is not a “how to” page. It gives a brief description of what accessible tourism is and Australian policies and legislation. Then it refers readers to a list of other organisations or guides listed below. This is not an exhaustive list, but it is a good start for tourism businesses, planners and local government.

Useful sites

- Accessible Tourism in Victoria and Queensland – the report examines the travel experiences of domestic travellers with accessibility needs
- PhotoAbility – Stock image library featuring individuals with disabilities in travel, leisure and lifestyle settings.
- Push Adventures – offers advice to make tourism businesses inclusive and accessible by a whole range of guests.
- Sydney for All – A visitors’ guide to Sydney using universal icons to help users decide which attractions provide the appropriate level of access.
- Accessible Victoria – The official tourist site for Melbourne and Victoria. Includes information on accessible accommodation, activities and attractions and the best ways to get around in Melbourne and Victoria.
- Queensland Inclusive Tourism Guide – a guide for making businesses more accessible and inclusive. Covers legal obligations, knowledge about the market, and strategies to improve the accessibility to appeal to a wider range of visitors of all abilities and ages.
- TravAbility – TravAbility is dedicated to Inclusive Tourism through education, advocacy, and by providing accessibility information for the world’s best travel destinations.
- Travellers Aid Australia – An organisation that provides simple, practical travel-related support and aid to help visitors of all backgrounds travel independently and confidently.
- Vision Australia – Vision Australia has fact sheets on issues relating to people who are blind and vision impaired. The fact sheets range from accessible design for homes to customer service tips.
- Inclusive Tourism: Economic Opportunities – enabling regional tourism businesses and local governments to improve information about inclusive services and products.

Including people with disability also includes people with young children in prams, older people, and people with temporary disabilities. Accessible, or inclusive tourism is about ensuring tourist destinations, products and services are accessible to everyone, regardless of their physical limitations, disabilities or age.

Category: Travel and Tourism

Accessible Acropolis: Heritage meets Access