Accessible Tourism Introduction to the Special Thematic Session

The Special Thematic Session is organized to provide a forum to discuss major issues related to Accessible Tourism, to identify existing barriers as well as technologies, strategies and approaches to promote Accessible Tourism. The more Information Communication Technologies and Assistive Technologies increase the potential to enable people with disabilities to take part in almost any area of life, the more eInclusion and eAccessibility become a common responsibility of the mainstream tourism industry. The European Commission appreciates this fact and therefore supports different activities to raise the awareness of the impact and the business opportunities that Accessible Tourism introduces. The forthcoming process of demographic ageing will lead to a growing number of tourists with needs for more accessibility and higher service quality also in tourism. Introduction and Economic Dimension The success and the competitiveness of tourism destinations depend on customer perception, an effective customer acquisition, satisfying customer support and successful customer retention [1]. The market of travelers with disabilities is lucrative, but frequently neglected by the tourism industry. Tourism and travel experiences are still highly restricted by physical accessibility barriers, such as: transportation constraints, inaccessible accommodation and tourism sites as well as information barriers such as a general lack of information, inadequate or incomplete information or poorly designed web sites. The tourism industry has on the one hand neglected to provide information about accessibility and on the other hand to adopt inclusive design principles. This is because of lack of enforcement of statutory building regulations, lack of knowledge and misperception about disabled and elderly customers’ actual requirements, and social segregation and stereotype challenges of catering for disabled and elderly customers [2, 3]. The accessibility requiring market is significant in terms of size as well as spending power. It has been estimated that over 750 million people worldwide and about 37 to 45 million people in Europe [4] have some type of disability. The OSSATE project has estimated the number of people with accessibility requirements 2 Franz Pühretmair, Dimitrios Buhalis in Europe to almost 130 million, when including the elderly as there is a strong and positive correlation between ageing and disability [4]. It has been estimated that 70% of them have the physical as well as the financial capabilities to travel. The economic dimension has been approved by different international studies [4, 5]. [5] has shown that in Germany 54.3% of people with disabilities travel. But 37% have already renounced a travel because adequate offers were missing and 48% of them would travel more frequently, if there were more accessible offers. To address the accessibility requiring market and to benefit from the multiplier effects generated by friends and relatives traveling with them tourism organizations and destinations should reassure accessibility in both their physical/built and on-line environments.