Visits to heritage sites are more than history and the site itself. It’s also about the interactions you have with others. Most inclusive tourism research has focused on the relationship between the operator and customer. But what about the relationship between visitors with and without disability? Shared settings for visitors create value for all customers and therefore the business. So how can operators facilitate inclusive customer to customer experiences?
Chiscano and Darcy used a heritage site for a qualitative study on customer to customer interactions. The aim of the research was to find out how people with and without disability share an experience. They also wanted to know how the interactions created value for the customers. Their paper is very academic with lots of theory and methods. It uses the language of “value outcome” and “social practices”.
Interactions were observed and participants reported on their interactions throughout the experience. The article reports in detail their findings of interactions that include and exclude. The concluding section has a table of quotes by participants which includes participant feedback on how they felt.
The article concludes with advice for heritage and cultural site managers. Operators can facilitate positive outcomes for visitors with and without disability by changing some of their processes. Providing support tools for people with different disability types before the activity is very helpful. People with disability enjoy their experience more if they can share it with other visitors with or without disability.
Everyone wins with inclusion
Bottom line; operators can benefit from customer to customer interactions and shared resources to create value for the business.
Simon Darcy wrote a post on Linked In: “Tourism is as much about the interactions you have with others as it is about the sites you are seeing and quite often people with disability have segregated experiences because of the lack of innovative service development that incorporates co-design and universal design principles within all service and product development.”
The title of the article is, C2C co-creation of inclusive tourism experiences for customers with disability in a shared heritage context experience.