Queensland Inclusive Tourism Guide

Front cover of the guide showing a man in a red shirt with his arms outstrechedThe 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 guide from the link on the Queensland Government website.

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

Dementia-friendly tourism: a guide

An older couple stand on a railway platform. A row of train carriages is in the background.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?

A less lonely planet with inclusive tourism

Martin Heng is in a very busy street in India. It shows donkey carts cars and bicycles with street vendors on either side.International travel is a great experience for everyone especially when operators get on board with inclusive thinking. In his latest article, Martin Heng goes beyond the rights arguments to explain the economics of inclusive travel. With a growing market of older travellers tourism and travel businesses need to step up to take advantage. Heng also picks up the issue of terminology: “accessible” makes people think of compliance for wheelchair users. But he rightly points out that wheelchair users are a small proportion of the population that has some kind of disability or chronic health condition. That’s why we should be calling it “inclusive travel”. 

Heng goes on to list the easy, cost effective things that businesses can do. And not just thinking about the building. Easy to read fonts on menus and other information materials, TVs with captioning options, and websites that provide relevant visitor information about rooms, attractions and services. The article has several pictures showing Martin in various overseas locations. The title is What is accessible travel, and why should we be talking about it? Martin Heng works for Lonely Planet as their Accessible Travel Manager. 

Image courtesy Martin Heng from his article. 

England and Scotland Guidebooks for the accessible way

A street scene. Cobbled roadway between five and six storey heritage buildings with Scottish flags flyingMany places in the U.K. offer accessible features for guests with disability. But 63 percent don’t promote the fact according to Bill Forrester in his TravAbility newsletterVisitEngland and VisitScotland have launched a website for tourism businesses to produce accessibility guides to help overcome this problem. People with disability and older people rarely travel alone – at least no more than the general population. So it is not just one person avoiding inaccessible places – it can be a whole family or travel group.

There’s good advice in Destinations for All: A guide to creating accessible destinationsIncluded in the guide are several case studies, some statistics on the number of people left out if the destination if it is not inclusive, engaging with other businesses, and dispelling myths. It even challenges the notion that heritage issues make it impossible by showcasing the Roman Baths project. This guide is informed by research and can be applied as much to a day out in Sydney or Melbourne as a two week holiday in Scotland. 

Tourism operators can use the new, free website, www.accessibilityguides.org, to produce and publish their accessibility guides. These guides should also be useful for Australian tourism operators as well. 

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