WHAT DISABLED TOURIST EXPECT TO FIND A HOLIDAY DESTINATION

The matter of accessible tourism actually is not to create tourists offers for persons with various and special needs but to rearrange tourist offers in such a way that they become offers for all - to become enjoyable for all, including people with all kinds of disability and impairments. Finally this also includes offering special tourist arrangements for groups of disabled persons, their companions and nurses. Not predominantly. What is wanted is a large range of different kind of offers: offers for tourist parties, for families travelling together as well as for single persons travelling alone, regardless whether being disabled or not.

German tourists would certainly expect to be able to get around as much as possible. We demand the "ununterbrochene Servicekette" (unbroken accessible service chain) in Germany . The heart of the idea of the "unbroken accessible service chain" is to offer accessible circumstances from information about destinations and venues over places of arrival, accommodation, visiting sights, museums, restaurants and so on, till departure. Visitors would expect an as far as possible unbroken chain of accessible hotels, restaurants, sights and attractions till the possibility to go for a stroll through streets and shops of a town.

Above I mentioned that personal recommendations, given by people who are disabled themselves, are very important for making any decision to spend a holiday abroad. Because of this it wouldn't be enough to spread all travel information for disabled visitors via tourist information boards and travel agencies only: tourist managers should pay attention to the special function of associations of elderly and disabled persons and their media.

One could write a book about this topic and many of such books have been written already. I have tried to focus on the most important points from my point of view. In fact, I think disabled travellers from every country will have the same wishes and expectations.

Hartmut Smikac

Fachlicher Beirat
Nationale Koordinationsstelle Tourismus für Alle
Deutschland
Kirchfeldstrasse 149
D - 40215 Duesseldorf
Smikac@natko.de

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