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:
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- 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:
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- 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.