What is accessible tourism?
Accessible Tourism is about the process of making all tourism offers suitable and easy to use for people with disabilities and for the wider range of customers who need – and benefit from – accessible surroundings, facilities, services and information.
IMPAIRMENT is the loss of a function of the body.For example, when someone cannot see properly. Impairments are mostly irreversible and lifelong. Sometimes the impairment can be treated, for example in the case of vision by using glasses.
DISABILITY is when the person has an impairment and experiences a barrier to do an activity. For example, if someone has an eye problem which cannot be treated, and therefore cannot read printed materials. If the materials were in braille, there would be no barrier for the person to read.
IMPAIRMENT x BARRIERS = DISABILITY
IMPAIRMENT X ACCESSIBLE ENVIRONMENT = INCLUSION
Prevalence of Disability
In other words, disability is a multidimensional concept that is understood as a relationship between an individual with an impairment and her/his environment. Disability is thus not considered to be an attribute of the person in question, but is the result of an interaction between a person and his environment. The environment that a person is in thus has a huge consequence on how someone experiences disability. If the environment was completely accessible to someone, then they would be more included in society. To put it differently:
Remember that 70% of disabilities are invisible – we do not necessarily see them, so make no assumptions.
