Abstract

This volume presents an international selection of invited contributions on policy and best practice in accessible tourism, reflecting current practices across a range of destinations and business settings. It brings together global expertise in planning, design and management to inform and stimulate providers of travel, transport, accommodation, leisure and tourism services to serve guests with disabilities, seniors and the wider markets that require good accessibility. Accessible tourism is not only about providing access to people with disabilities but also addresses the creation of universally designed environments, services and information that can support people who may have temporary disabilities, families with young children, the ever-increasing ageing population, as well as creating safer work places for employees. The book gives ample evidence that accessible tourism organisations and destinations can expand their target markets as well as improve the quality of their service offering, leading to greater customer satisfaction, loyalty and expansion of business.

The book makes a valuable contribution to a paradigm shift from extraordinary/special considerations for people with disability to inclusive citizenship for all. Best Practice in Accessible Tourism challenges the portrayal of people with disability as a burden and demonstrates with evidence the growing market potential of people with disability and the ageing.

Overall this pioneering, interesting collection and detailed discussion of Accessible Tourism best-cases and shortcomings in many destinations is a must-read for tourism policy makers and consultants at the international, national and local levels, and, one hopes, that quality tourism practitioners in the ecotourism sector will also take an interest.

This volume contains a range of productive and worthwhile contributions…It is anticipated that the book will appeal to professionals and tourism providers addition to students, academics, and researchers.

This book, together with its preceding partner volume, makes a worthy contribution to the consolidation of an accessible base of knowledge on this important topic. It will be relevant as a broad introduction to the field for students, as well as providing inroads into the existing body of research and practice in accessible tourism. This book will be of value as a structured critical overview of current practice for tourism researchers, while also providing practical insights for those involved in the design and management of tourism attractions and facilities, and the formulation and implementation of tourism policy.

Professor Dimitrios Buhalis is a Strategic Management and Marketing expert with specialisation in Technology and Tourism at Bournemouth University. Professor Buhalis is leading eTourism research and he is a Fellow of the International Academy for the Study of Tourism and the President of the International Federation for Information Technologies in Travel and Tourism (IFITT).

Dr Simon Darcy is an Associate Professor and Research Director in the School of Leisure, Sport and Tourism at the University of Technology, Sydney. Simon's research and teaching expertise is in sport, tourism and diversity management. He currently holds research grants investigating organisational responses to accessible tourism, sports management practices and protected area visitor management systems.

Ivor Ambrose is the Managing Director and co-founder of ENAT, the European Network for Accessible Tourism. He has worked for over 30 years as a researcher, project manager, development and policy advisor in the fields of building design and evaluation, public housing, accessibility and assistive technologies for disabled and elderly people, accessible tourism and information systems.

The editors have assembled an excellent compilation of thought provoking, cutting edge international chapters on best practice in accessible tourism. The text provides important insights into current practices and policies, but also critically reflects on what more needs to be done. This timely work is a must read for practitioners, policy makers and academics.

In 25 chapters, Best Practice in Accessible Tourism provides a 'state-of-the-art' assessment of both theory and practice. This book establishes a new field of study and provides the benchmark against which other contributions will be judged. It integrates the work of all the key players and should be read by academics, managers and government policy makers.