Disability Employment in the Hospitality Industry: Human Resources Considerations

[Excerpt] The characteristics of the hospitality industry are extremely dynamic and differ from other industries. In the United States and many other parts of the world, the predominant industry is transitioning from manufacturing to service. The hospitality industry is growing—the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics expects the hospitality industry to add 17% in wage and salary employment, compared to the 14% for all other industries combined. The nature of the hospitality industry makes it very labor intensive. Additionally, the hospitality industry has extremely high employee turnover rates. While the annual turnover rate for all industry sectors was 39.6% the leisure and hospitality sectors averaged 74.6%

Cultural accessible pedestrian ways. The case of Faro historic centre

In a historic city the existence of accessible pedestrian routes constitutes an essential feature to a true access to culture heritage, contributing for processes of social inclusion. It is necessary to create accessible pedestrian infrastructures network to hold a set of attributes that guarantee usability for all citizens. The creation and design of an accessible physical environment should be considered as a criterion of urban quality, which will make walking more pleasant not only for the elderly and people with disabilities but, also, for the entire resident population and tourists. In this case study it is ascertainable whether the physical characteristics of pedestrian infrastructures of cultural interest, located in the Historical Centre of Faro (Portugal), comply with the requirements of the National Law of Accessibility. There has, therefore, been created a methodology for evaluating the accessibility of pedestrian infrastructure through the construction of performance indicators. The analysis is achieved through a model of evaluation of the degree of conformity of the spaces, and presented, spatially, with appeal to a Geographical Information System, which is a tool to support the decision taking in the processes of urban rehabilitation, thus contributing to the choice of priority areas of intervention in the field of accessibility. The diagnosis confirms the existence of inaccessible pedestrian infrastructure and concludes the need to trigger processes of urban renovation.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Toward a Global History of Inclusive Travel

This paper provides an overview of the development of inclusive travel and tourism, from its origins in the United States and Europe following World War I and II to its current status as an increasingly important and viable movement worldwide. The paper investigates the key roles played by disability organizations, disability rights legislation, technological change, international organizations and pioneers within the travel and tourism industry. Developments are described sector by sector for air travel, ground transport, the cruise lines and the hospitality industry. While the primary historical focus is the U.S., the paper also highlights advances taking place in Dubai, Egypt, India, Japan, South Africa, Thailand and other countries. It concludes with a case study by José Isola of the development of inclusive travel in Peru. Mr. Isola also describes disability conferences that took place in South America in 2004. It is hoped others will begin to investigate the development of inclusive travel in their own countries and regions and contribute to a truly global history

Community-Based Inclusion: Promoting Rural Tourism Through Accessibility in Cuenca, Ecuador

The goal of this project was to develop recommendations to help the Community Tourism Board in Sayausí, a rural community in Ecuador, modify existing tourist facilities and activities to allow visitors with physical disabilities to participate. In a context of worldwide efforts to make tourism inclusive for this group, Sayausí can attract a wider range of visitors and increase its income through tourism spending, while capturing a sense of pride as the community preserves its vanishing Andean culture. After identifying current barriers to accessibility in Sayausí’s tourism practices, evaluating disabled tourists’ needs, and gathering input from local residents, we developed recommendations for the Sayausí Tourism Board on how to modify their facilities and activities to become accessible

Progress in information technology and tourism management: 20 years on and 10 years after the Internet—The state of eTourism research

This paper reviews the published articles on eTourism in the past 20 years. Using a wide variety of sources, mainly in the tourism literature, this paper comprehensively reviews and analyzes prior studies in the context of Internet applications to Tourism. The paper also projects future developments in eTourism and demonstrates critical changes that will influence the tourism industry structure. A major contribution of this paper is its overview of the research and development efforts that have been endeavoured in the field, and the challenges that tourism researchers are, and will be, facing

Application for a barrier free tourism in Valencia

Barrier free tourism is increasingly getting a greater attention by the tourist industry, not just for the added value given to the touristic experience, but because of the difference and specialization on a wide market share that the Spanish touristic sector has not been able to fully take advantage of yet. Following this idea, the National Plan for Smart cities (Plan Nacional de Ciudades Inteligentes) stands up for smart touristic destinations where innovative technologies should play an important role to improve accessibility. The development of the mobile phone App “Barrier Free-Valencia” intents to offer a useful tool to walk through the city of Valencia guaranteeing a 100% barrier free route. The methodology used for the development is based on the combination of a systematic field work, using free access information provided by the Municipality of Valencia, and calculations based on the Dijkstra algorithm (1959) implemented on a GIS software. To calculate the route, it is used the impedance or crossing difficulty concept where the different urban barriers and low comfort situation areas are identified. The main data used are: presence of lower sidewalks, path narrowing, slopes, steps and noisy pavement. After this data has been identified, the routes are divided into accessible, passable, and not accessible. It is necessary to work on the idea of creating representative single line grids of sidewalks and, therefore, of real paths followed by urban citizens. By doing so, more data can be collected to build a complete Smart City grid. The development of Apps such as Barrier Free will help on the evolution towards more inclusive cities. An idea that is the basic line of our investigation

Inclusive hotel design in India : A user perspective

This paper examines the barriers concerning access to hotel facilities in India, which leads to the physical exclusion of tourists with some form of physical disability. This research aims to analyse the existing facilities available in a hotel as experienced by these users with regard to mobility, circulation, and access to services in all categories of hotels in India. People with disabilities (PwD) have the same motivation to travel and experience tourism as other tourists but are impeded owing to the challenges that they experience in hotels. This study focuses on PwD’s perspectives on the concept regarding barrier-free hotel design and planning in India, which encourages ‘accessible tourism’. Furthermore, this research employs a quantitative analysis from the users’ perspective pertaining to differently abled tourists with respect to the concepts of ‘barrier-free’ and ‘accessible tourism’. The users’ experiences have been rated for hotels ranging from budget to 5-star categories. Moreover, the research findings indicate that although barrier-free tourism is emerging as a concept in India, many hotels are yet to implement universal standards concerning accessibility. While the Ministry of Tourism, Government of India, has taken several initiatives to provide barrier-free tourism in 4- and 5-star hotels to make their facilities accessible for PwD, this research recommends that such facilities should be upgraded in budget hotels as well, in order to develop affordable and inclusive hotel design. In addition, this study emphasizes the relevance of universal design and proposes a new paradigm to establish inclusive hotels, which can further encourage domestic and international tourists to experience the rich culture and heritage of India.Peer Reviewe

The role of social organisations in the promotion of recreation and tourism activities for people with special needs

Although leisure and tourism are recognised as rights for all people, many people with special needs (PwSN) still have very limited opportunities for participating in these activities. Social organisations (SO) are potential mediators between the tourism industry and this market, especially for reducing barriers to participation. However, there is a lack of research on the role these organisations perform as facilitators of access to leisure and tourism. This paper aims to identify the difficulties faced and strategies adopted by SO when developing recreation and tourism activities, as well as the benefits of these activities for PwSN. A qualitative approach was adopted, namely semi-structured interviews with representatives of Portuguese SO working with PwSN. The findings highlight that Portuguese SO have had a dynamic and proactive behaviour in the development of recreation and tourism activities, contributing to increased access of PwSN to tourism activities, especially for people belonging to socially and economically disadvantaged groups. However, the results also show that SO face several constraints, specifically financial constraints, lack of specialised human resources and the lack of suitable tourism supply (e.g. accommodation, transportation) for this market. The paper ends with strategies that these organisations may adopt to cope with these constraints.This research was funded by the project ACTION – Accessible Tourism: Co-Creation of Tourism Experiences Through Web-Based Intelligent Systems, funded by FEDER, through COMPETE2020 – Programa Operacional Competitividade e Internacionalização (POCI-01-0145-FEDER-030376), and by national funds (OE), through FCT/MCTES (PTDC/EGE-OGE/30376/2017publishe

Europe without barriers: accessible tourism between places and projects

In the last few decades, the tourism sector in Europe has been facing growing demands from travellers who want better access in hotels, at holiday destinations and tourist attractions. The number of European travellers in the 55+ age group is increasing and, together with disabled people and their families, these customers are looking for travel options where basic accessibility features are standard. The so-called accessible tourism for all is not about providing separate services for separate targets or niche tourist markets. It aims at full integration or rather the inclusion of people with special needs (age, size, disability) in the tourism sector. Its long-term goal is the creation of a tourist environment in which all tourists can participate actively. Viewed from the perspective of accessible tourism for all, tourism policy in the European Union can be said to unite accessibility targets that are part of the otherwise trade-related aspects of tourism policy and a disability policy that, based on the United Nations\u2019 Standard Rules, support goals and specific measures at various levels that are designed to enhance accessibility in connection with tourism policy. Within this framework, the main purpose of this research is to investigate strategies and actions to which the European Commission is committed to increase accessibility in tourism. Using a qualitative methodology, the paper explores objectives and activities of some initiatives that are helping to make travel and tourism accessible for everyone. Therefore, it offers an overview of some projects and good practices taking place in European countries