What is Accessible Tourism?

Accessible Tourism, also known as “Tourism for All”, is an evolving concept which has been developed in recent years. It is variously defined as:

• the collection of services, structures and infrastructures that allow people with specific access requirements, such as people with disabilities and people with special dietary needs or suffering from allergies, older people, families with small children etc. to enjoy their holidays and their leisure time without obstacles or difficulties.
• It refers to enhancing accommodation services and ensuring the accessibility to the accommodation facilities, transportation and mobility services, restaurant services and leisure and recreational services;
• It refers to linking all the services in such a way that they can all be equally and easily used, seamlessly, to grant people with specific needs and their families a higher degree of autonomy in enjoying their tourist experience. This includes publicly and privately-owned tourist locations, facilities and services.

The objective of Accessible Tourism is to allow all people the experience of travelling as independently as possible and to have the opportunity to get to know new realities and new locations, as an experience leading to personal growth. Increasingly this is being understood as everyone’s right.
Some people have more difficulty in travelling than others due to cultural, architectural/physical and information/communication as well as attitudinal barriers.
Accessible Tourism aims to remove barriers and deliver higher quality experiences for everyone and that’s why it concerns and involves the whole of society.
Accessible Tourism is also referred to in other ways including “Tourism for All”, “Barrier-free Tourism” or “Inclusive Tourism”.
Accessible tourism involves a collaborative process among all stakeholders, Governments, international agencies, tour-operators and end-users, including persons with disabilities and their organizations. A successful tourism product requires effective partnerships and cooperation across many sectors at the national, regional and international levels. The visitor journey to any destination involves many factors, all of which must take into account the access requirements of the visitor: access to information, long-distance transport modes, local transportation, accommodation, shopping, dining, etc. The impact of accessible tourism thus goes beyond the tourist beneficiaries to the wider society, ingraining accessibility into the social and economic values of society.
Accessible tourism destinations that create environments, products and services suitable for people with specific access requirements will experience positive effects in terms of increasing tourism flows, improved economic returns and enhanced competitiveness.