Is accessibility critical to sustainable tourism?

Access­ible tour­ism advoc­ate Neha Arora asks the travel & tour­ism industry to factor in the needs of the eld­erly and people with dis­ab­il­it­ies when design­ing sus­tain­able des­tin­a­tions and respons­ible products.

Accord­ing to the UNWTO web­site, the defin­i­tion of sus­tain­able travel is: “Tour­ism that takes full account of its cur­rent and future eco­nom­ic, social and envir­on­ment­al impacts, address­ing the needs of vis­it­ors, the industry, the envir­on­ment and host communities.”

Yes, we are exper­i­en­cing major cli­mat­ic and envir­on­ment­al change glob­ally. Travel & tour­ism, like a two-faced coin, is one of the lead­ing causes of it and one of the sec­tors most impacted by it. We are also exper­i­en­cing major atti­tu­din­al changes in com­munit­ies impacted by over-tour­ism. And, as tour­ism grows for bet­ter or for worse, our car­bon foot­print is also increas­ing by the expo­nen­tial increase in the num­ber of flights being taken by travellers. 

Thus most of us agree that there must be a great­er glob­al aware­ness of sus­tain­able and respons­ible travel & tour­ism, with the view to: redu­cing our car­bon foot­print, cut­ting out single-use plastics, caring for host com­munit­ies, enga­ging in fair-value trade, and mit­ig­at­ing our impact on des­tin­a­tions’ eco­sys­tems etc.

Not­with­stand­ing all those imper­at­ives, we ignore major seg­ments of soci­ety by assum­ing that they do not want to travel. Sel­dom do we talk about those who wish to travel like every­one else but are unable to do so. This seg­ment accounts for 15% of the world pop­u­la­tion. When you include their friends and fam­ily mem­bers, this increases to almost 25%. 

I am of course talk­ing about people with dis­ab­il­it­ies and the eld­erly. The reas­on they do not travel is not that they do not want to but because of the inac­cess­ib­il­ity of many des­tin­a­tions, the lack of inform­a­tion about des­tin­a­tions that are access­ible, soci­et­al stigma, and fear of the unknown. 

And I am say­ing this from my per­son­al exper­i­ence. I could nev­er travel as a child because both my par­ents are per­sons with dis­ab­il­it­ies. My fath­er is blind and my moth­er is a wheel­chair user. The inac­cess­ib­il­ity of the built envir­on­ment and the unwel­com­ing atti­tude of des­tin­a­tions were the primary reas­ons for us not trav­el­ling at all. 

We grew up hop­ing things would change for the bet­ter, but we were dis­ap­poin­ted. A series of not-so-good travel exper­i­ences with my par­ents led me to look for solu­tions. Unfor­tu­nately, I could not find any, which made me won­der what people like us do. Well, either they were not trav­el­ling at all, or were facing sim­il­ar not-so-good travel moments. This real­isa­tion hit me hard and got me think­ing about solu­tions for my fam­ily and the 25% of the world pop­u­la­tion exper­i­en­cing sim­il­ar frustrations. 

I left my cor­por­ate career to set up Plan­et Abled, a travel com­pany for all. Our chal­lenge is to deliv­er respons­ible, sus­tain­able, AND access­ible travel exper­i­ences to our cus­tom­ers. In addi­tion to our con­cern about host com­munit­ies and the envir­on­ment, we con­sider deeply how a per­son with a dis­ab­il­ity or an eld­erly per­son can travel to and exper­i­ence des­tin­a­tions as oth­ers do. 

Are des­tin­a­tions and travel ser­vices we part­ner with sim­il­arly con­cerned about all these mat­ters? In addi­tion to their demon­strable sense of respons­ib­il­ity and desire for sus­tain­ab­il­ity, are they address­ing the need for access­ib­il­ity and inclu­sion? Are they bar­ri­er-free for every type of trav­el­ler? Are both the tan­gible and intan­gible bar­ri­ers being removed? 

Can des­tin­a­tions and travel ser­vices really be called sus­tain­able when they exclude nearly a quarter of the world’s population? 

Are we as an industry think­ing that we must first make des­tin­a­tions sus­tain­able and then ret­ro­fit them to make them bar­ri­er-free? Who is ready to bear the cost of retrofitting? 

Isn’t it a bet­ter idea to include uni­ver­sal design in des­tin­a­tions and products right from the start, thereby mak­ing tour­ism truly sustainable?

I leave you with these ques­tions to pon­der upon!

And if you can’t find the right answers to the what, why, and how of inclus­ive travel, I am happy to answer them.

Fea­tured image: UNW­TO’s World Tour­ism Day in 2016 was themed “Tour­ism For All: Pro­mot­ing Uni­ver­sal Access­ib­il­ity”. This image was widely used as part of that campaign.

About the author

Neha Arora is the founder of Plan­et Abled, an organ­isa­tion that provides access­ible and inclus­ive travel solu­tions for people with diverse dis­ab­il­it­ies. Before tak­ing the plunge to start Plan­et Abled, Neha worked with com­pan­ies like HCL, Nokia, and Adobe in vari­ous mana­geri­al roles.

A Glob­al Good Fund fel­low and a TEDx speak­er, Neha reg­u­larly deliv­ers work­shops about the seam­less integ­ra­tion of people with dis­ab­il­it­ies into main­stream soci­ety as well as social entrepreneurship.