Sustainable Product Development for Accessible Tourism: Case Studies Demonstrating the Need for Stakeholder Collaboration

Accessible Tourism and Formal Planning: Current State of Istria County in Croatia

When the number of older people and the number of families with young children (babies and toddlers) are counted in the total share of persons with disability it is clear that a significant share of people in the world’s tourist market face various obstacles to achieving their fundamental human rights in accessing tourist destinations and related infrastructure. These segments of the market encounter various challenges when they do travel, while many refrain from travelling at all. The theoretical framework examines the concept of accessible tourism and provides a review of the necessary preconditions for forming such a tourist offer available to everyone. Contrary to common belief, accessible tourism surpasses the issues of mobility, as it also includes people with mental, mood, vision, speech, hearing, stroke and other conditions. Examples of good practice are also provided as an incentive for the design and implementation of future inclusive projects, representing the aim of this paper. Research featuring various categories of the tourism offer available to everyone on the case study of Istria County is also presented. The analysis compares major towns in Istria County and the degree of their adaptation to the needs of this market segment, where many practical implications have emerged. The concept of accessibility lies on three key pillars: physical, informative and service based. Thus, removing physical barriers, incorporating the principles of universal design into every new building’s design, as well as educated staff for formulating and implementing strategies and other plans, are key factors in creating additional tourist value. It is fundamental to include people with disabilities in tourism and in society.

Should I Stay or Can I Go? Accessible Tourism and Mountain Huts in Gran Paradiso National Park

Within the tourism sector, sustainability has been studied widely at different levels and with different lenses. In the last few years, many research activities have been carried out to assess the social dimension of tourism. Under this perspective, scholars have focused on the accessibility of the tourism and hospitality sectors. This study represents the first-ever attempt to assess how tourists’ physical handicaps or special needs are considered in a very specific kind of accommodation facility: the mountain hut. To do so, semi-structured interviews were conducted with mountain hut managers about four mountain huts—29% of all the mountain huts located in Gran Paradiso National Park, the first established Italian protected area. The results underline both strong and critical points. Considering that many mountain huts are located in severe environments (e.g., medium-high altitudes and reachable only on foot), they have limitations in hosting visitors with physical constraints, who, on the other hand, normally do not attend this kind of facility. By contrast, all of the mountain hut managers were able to satisfy visitors with special food needs, for example, vegetarian, vegan or gluten-free, showing their capability to cope with new forms of tourism demands and expectations.

A Theoretical Model for the Implementation of Social Sustainability in the Synthesis of Tourism, Disability Studies, and Special-Needs Education

This paper deals with the study of disability science, special-needs education, and psychology of special needs in the context of tourism. It is rare to find a link between these research areas in the literature. Accessible tourism has attracted widespread research interest in recent decades, but the number of studies focusing on tourism in the fields of disability studies, special-needs education, and psychology of special needs is very limited. Although there is growing literature on accessible tourism and related topics, the development of the research field is uneven, as most research focuses on specific subareas without considering the context of the whole spectrum of the topic. The interdisciplinary research aims to explore the situations of people with disabilities in terms of their participation in tourism. The data collected will be used to analyse the supply and demand side of tourism from a specific perspective. Among the external environmental impacts, the issue of sustainability will be highlighted, which will be addressed from a societal perspective by analysing the sustainable development goals (SDGs) related to the topic. The study includes a theoretical analysis through the processing of secondary sources, linking the fields of tourism, disability studies, special-needs education, and psychology of special needs, with the potential of social sustainability and the achievement of the SDGs. The paper presents a new model that illustrates the potential for achieving social sustainability from the supply and demand side of tourism. The model can be valuable, not only for those who want to extend their research into this new field, but also for tourism policy makers. The study also identifies key research questions on this topic that merit theoretical and empirical exploration in the future.