Accessibility and tourism: The Personal Impact of Tourism

1. Accessibility and tourism: The Personal Impact of Tourism TOMG200

2. How do disabilities impact on the ability to communicate (and mobility)?

3. Dimensions of disability • Mobility • Sensory • Communication • Intellectual/Mental health • Hidden • Restricted physical mobility • Deaf; blind • Impaired speech • Behavioural disorder • Heart problems; diabetes; epilepsy; breathing difficulties

4. Definition (Uncrpd, 2008) “Those individuals who have long-term physical, mental, cognitive, or sensory impairments that, in interaction with various barriers, may hinder their full and effective participation in society on an equal basis with others” (cited in Freeman & Selmi, 2009: 472)

5. The Silence of the Lambs “experience” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G1IayQ9MAl4

6. Inaccessible tourism (Darcy, 2012) • Air travel practices routinely contravened disability discrimination legislation, resulting in ‘(dis)embodied’ experiences for PwD. • PwD includes mobility, hearing, vision, intellectual, sensitivities, mental health, etc. • Principles of the UN’s (2006) CRPWD: • Dignity; independence; participation; respect; disability as part of human diversity; equality of opportunity; gender equity; rights of children. • Responsibility placed on governments and businesses to identify and eliminate barriers.

7. Stages of air travel (Darcy, 2012: 5) • Pre-travel planning • Boarding & disembarking • Seat allocation • Personal care issues • Equipment handling • Customer Service • Segregated booking system for TwD; inequity • Separated from equipment; loss of dignity • Safety procedures; anxiety • No onboard chair; dependence • Damage; helplessness • Inappropriate language; de-valued

8. France & canada(Freeman & Selmi, 2010) • Financial barriers • Communication barriers e.g. leaflets • Medication guidelines, need for rests, lowered ability to cope with stress during delays • Poor sound systems announcing stops on trains, non-use of sign language, seating of physically disabled individuals, removal of wheelchairs and/or canes • Limited wheelchair access on trains, inadequate signage, negative attitudes of staff • Few historical buildings wheelchair accessible • Few hotels can accommodate vision & auditory disabilities

9. Air travel for visually impaired (Richards, Pritchard & Morgan, 2010) • Approx 314 million people worldwide live with low vision and blindness; feel they are treated as a homogenous group; disregarded and ignored • 3 themes: embodied tourism encounters; inhospitable tourism encounters; navigating tourism environments • Airline forced 2 travellers with low vision to sit in a wheelchair to be assisted through the airport and to the aeroplane; they were left in the dark to wait for boarding; loss of dignity; feel a “fraud” • Room lighting, reading signs and menus can be problematic, as well as navigating unfamiliar environments (– physical and psychological toll); anxiety, frustration and embarrassment

10. Air travel & obesity (Small & Harris, 2012) • Airline policies relating to obese passengers e.g.: • Southwest Airlines require “customers of size” to purchase 2 tickets • Ryanair’s consideration of a “fat tax” • Termination of employment of overweight flight attendants (BBC News, 2009) • Negative attitudes of flight attendants when passengers had to ask for seatbelt extensions • Financial barriers (having to pay for two seats) • Embarrassment, fear, discomfort of the “one size fits all” airline seats; “Walk of Shame” • Litigation by travellers who received injuries from being seated next to a passenger who was obese.

11. ‘No Go’ Britain http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHG86on7dlg&feature=youtube_gdata_player

12. Barriers to tourism • Intrinsic (physical) • Interactive • Environmental (sociological)

13. The tourism sector • Despite inclusive government regulations, few studies look at tourists with disabilities as a whole (focus on type of disability) • A TwD has special needs regardless of his or her country of origin or travel (technical definition) • Assumed that people with disabilities do not travel; do not work in travel • A ‘holistic’ approach is called for (Freeman & Selmi, 2009) • Despite legislation mandating equal access, a country’s tourism industry rarely has developed effective policy to accommodate TwD • Coordination of the industry for the disabled is lacking

14. Accessible tourism (Buhalis & Darcy, 2011. Accessible Tourism: Concepts & Issues) • Inclusion, disability, the ageing populationand provision of tourism increasingly important • Accessible tourism is socially constructed • A systems approach is important • Implementation of international human rights conventions and national legislation (e.g. UN (2006, 2008) Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities) • Disability is multi-dimensional; understanding of a person’s embodiment is central to developing enabling practices, accessible environments and attitudes

15. Accessible tourism (Buhalis & Darcy, 2011: 10) “Accessible tourism is a form of tourism that involves collaborative processes between stakeholders that enables people with access requirements, including mobility, vision, hearing, and cognitive dimensions of access, to function independently and with equity and dignity through the delivery of universally designed tourism products, services and environments. This definition adopts a whole of life approach where people through their lifespan benefit from accessible tourism provision. These include people with permanent and temporary disabilities, seniors, obese, families with young children and those working in safer and more socially sustainably designed environments”

16. Stakeholder groups 2. Disability organisations/charities 3. Health organisations 1. Disabled individuals/tourists 4. DMO’s (NTOs, RTOs) 9. Government Accessible Tourism 5. Tourism suppliers 8. Providers of Destination Management Systems 6. Accommodation suppliers 7. Intermediaries e.g. Travel agents (Michopoulou & Buhalis, 2011: 263)

17. Social tourism • The benefits of tourism for deprived and marginalised groups e.g. tourism poverty • UK (Sedgley, Pritchard & Morgan, 2012: 952): • 13% of couples unable to afford a day trip; 21% cannot afford a week away from home • 40% single parent families unable to afford a day trip; 60% cannot afford a week away from home • UK Govt spending cuts will result in 200,000 more children in child poverty between 2013 and 2014.

18. “A social approach recognises that it is not the person’s impairment that is disabling but the environment and hostile social attitudes” (Darcy, 2012: 2) Q: What methods/practices might be effective for changing attitudes and removing structural barriers to transform disabled environments to enabling environments for travel? How do we make elements of tourism accessible to all people?

19. conclusion • Tourism participation is a right of citizenship • Discriminatory practices have a significant impact on individuals beyond the structural elements of travel (Darcy, 2012; Freeman & Selmi, 2010) • Tourism delivers personal impacts • Personal impacts can be understood through embodied understanding (critical inquiry and ‘reflexivity’ - McIntosh, 2010; Ren et al., 2010) • Opportunity to learn from inaccessible environments, practices, procedures and service attitudes • Elements of accessibility are important for legal, service-related and operationalisingsustainability (triple bottom line) reasons • Requires the tourism sector to be reflexive.

20. readings • http://www.disabled-world.com/travel/- Accessible Disability Travel Information • Darcy (2012) – on recommended reading list