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Society inhibiting access to tourism for visually impaired travellers

Society inhibiting access to tourism for visually impaired travellers
Author: Noora Riipinen
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Visually impaired travellers feel, smell, taste and hear the world in colourful soundscapes rich in details and depth, for in the absence of a sense the others are heightened and provide a way to experience aspects of life, individuals with vision don't even register. For these travellers the accessibility barriers pose challenges, caused by the industrialised society's lack of awareness on the subject and slow realisation of a potentially great market possibility.

Key words: Visual impairment, travel experience, accessibility

Everyone will become disabled at one point in their lives. Due to ageing, accidents or illnesses the able bodied will experience an impairment temporarily or permanently (Richards et al. 2010), which promotes the necessity for raising awareness and developing tourism accessibility.

Approximately 284 million people globally experience visual impairments from levels of moderate visual impairment to blindness. These count to about 44 % of all impairments (650 million) (WHO 2011) yet in the marginal amount of academic literature on impairments and tourism, issues have been research almost entirely from the point of view of mobility. Therefore this paper seeks to identify and provide information on gaps in knowledge of the visually impaired travellers' experiences in order to raise awareness and understanding for possible development of the tourism industry and infrastructure.

The world can be experienced with all five senses, and while travelling the senses experience something different after anticipation of feeling the warmth of the Moroccan sun on skin, the smell of a crispy winter morning in Norway, hearing rapid conversations in various different languages in Dubai, tasting spicy food in India or seeing the turquoise waves washing the white sand beaches in Mexico. The visually impaired travellers feel, smell, taste and hear the world in colourful soundscapes rich in details and depth, for in the absence of a sense the others are heightened and provide a way to experience aspects of life, individuals with vision don't even register. All the senses link experiences to emotions and later develop into memories. The visual experience is no doubt a part of the whole encounter, but it is only one part of a bigger sensory field (Richards et al. 2010).

The Union of the Physically Impaired Against Segregation explains in their view how disability is a way of thought from the society creating barriers, whereas impairment is the physical part of an individual. With the awareness, understanding and environmental as well as attitudinal changes from the society there wouldn't be disabled people and physically impaired individuals would be able to access aspects in the society without issues of accessibility (Richards et al 2010).

Everyone should be allowed to the same information in a format accessible for them without substantial delays, difficulties or charge. Having accessible form of information is futile if the traveller doesn't know where to find it or the staff isn't aware of the functions of the form of information. Individuals should be made aware of the possible services at a destination or a transportation method, as well as the travel and hospitality staff requires awareness training to promote understanding of how impaired people experience the world. An example of good means, but lack of awareness is of a restaurant with a menu in Braille, but the waiter had sat on the paper menu making the raised dots illegible (Richards et al 2010).

Some examples of development needs for good accessible tourism are edging of steps, colour contrasts, staff availability, contrasting materials (avoid reflective materials), continuous sounds (such as wind chimes or a fountain), fixed signage and objects, comprehensible audio announcements as well as adequate lighting. The colour contrasts help partially sighted individuals to see outlines of objects such as handrails whereas continuous sounds help both partially sighted and blind individuals to locate and evaluate distances. Adequate lighting is important for partially sighted to be able to use the sight they have (Richards et al. 2010).

When developing aspects of tourism infrastructure advisable is to get an opinion from for example Impairment organisations, to see if the developed products (hotels, trains, planes etc.) are accessible, and what suggestions would they have for improvements.

The population is ageing and retired individuals are nowadays more active in their pursuits. They are more adventurous and have the money and the time to travel. This growing market for tourism is increasingly impaired, due to the age related impairments such as low vision (Richards et al. 2010). Together with families, friends and carers they are potentially a very significant but ignored market (Yau et al. 2004).



References:

Richards, V.; Pritchard, A. and Morgan, N. (2010) (Re)Envisioning Tourism and Visual Impairment, Annals of Tourism Research, 37(4) pp. 1097-1116

World Health Organisation (2011) Fact sheet about visual impairment, WHO, available through: http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs282/en/ (Accessed: 26.4.2011)

Yau, M.; McKercher, B. and Packer, T. (2004) Traveling with a disability: More than an Access Issue, Annals of Tourism Research, 31(4) pp. 946-960