Best Practice in Accessible Tourism: Inclusion, Disability, Ageing Population and Tourism

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.

Dimitrios Buhalis is a Professor and the Director of the eTourism Lab and Deputy Director of the International Centre for Tourism and Hospitality Research, Bournemouth University, UK. He is a strategic management and marketing expert with specialisation in ICT applications in the tourism and hospitality industries.

Simon Darcy is a Professor of Social Inclusion at the UTS Business School, University of Technology Sydney. He is an interdisciplinary mixed methods researcher with expertise in developing inclusive organisational approaches for diversity groups. Simon’s academic and industry-based work in disability, tourism and accessible tourism has defined the field and led to collaborations with local, regional, national and international destination management organisations including the UN World Tourism Organization. As one of the few researchers with a lived experience of disability as a high-level person with a spinal cord injury who uses a power wheelchair, he brings an insider’s perspective that seeks to develop transformative solutions for transport, travel and tourism for the group.

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.