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Travelling with Disability - More Stressful than You Think

Travelling with Disability - More Stressful than You Think
Author: Anni Siitonen
3 Commentries
Abstract

Booking the holiday and the actual journey is always stressful even without a disability, but just try to imagine how stressful it is for people with disability. They quite often worry about how they will be treated in the destination and about the attitudes of the hosts, other tourists and locals towards their disability in addition to practical issues like accessibility. In order to get the customer actually enjoy the holiday the staff in the destination should have thought about the psychological needs in addition to the physical needs. It is often more important that the customers are being understood and that they get positive and helpful service than if only accessibility is being taken care of.

Key words

Disability, Travelling, Difficulties, Psychological


People with disabilities often encounter various difficulties during their holiday and the difficulties vary depending of which kind of disability is in question. People with physical disabilities such as immovability have difficulties mainly with access issues or with time consuming activities which require lots of moving from place to place such as sightseeing. In addition to psychological difficulties people often encounter problems with other tourists, locals and hosts who usually are either impassive or over friendly. They also have problems with tourism industry employees, in particular travel agents who do not often understand their real needs, which is disappointing for the customer. People with disabilities have to do a lot more effort in order to book their holiday than people without disabilities and they encounter more problems thus they need first to accept the disability by themselves before they are ready to travel.

People with disabilities are often reluctant to travel, because they are worried both about how they will be treated and whether there will be sufficient access to beaches, restaurants and hotels. The staff and other people in the destination are usually concentrated on the accessibility rather than psychological perspective of the customers stay when in reality listening and understanding the customer's needs is as important as accessibility if not even more significant.

Travellers with disabilities are similar to those travellers without disabilities in a context of pleasure travel as they enjoy the similar activities during their stay. There are many people with disabilities who do not travel, because it takes a lot more effort to book a holiday for disabled than for a person without disability. Many people with disabilities are unwilling to travel abroad, because they are worried and stressed about the things that might go wrong during their stay. Despite of this there are plenty of people with disabilities who do want to travel and get active, but it just takes a lot more effort to do it than from the person without disability.

Attitudes towards disabled travellers have been changed dramatically in a short period of time, but there are still several problems in that area that needs to be improved. People tend to be friendly for the outside but less friendly in a non-verbalised way towards the people with disabilities. On the other hand people may be over friendly towards the people with disabilities, which usually is as annoying as any other behaviour which makes the person in question feel uncomfortable and different compared to other tourists without disabilities. This kind of behaviour is often due the fact that people without disabilities are either oblivious or just ignorant towards and they do not know how to behave around the people with disabilities or they might be over friendly, because they pity the disabled people, which is also arrogant and unreasonable behaviour. One blind woman writes on her blog about the issue:

'As those of you with disabilities well know, we are adept at hiding our frustrations when people in society are either overly helpful or unintentionally not helpful at all. I've promised myself that I will try to be as patient as my impatient personality will permit while in Hong Kong regarding these issues. It is a daily struggle.'

The society needs to become more aware of the expectations of disabled people. Tourism should be accessible for everyone and people should understand that sufficient accessibility is not all that it takes to please the customer. Although access issues are significantly important when it comes to the holidays of disabled people, there are also things that are more important. Disabled people are not only people with disabilities but they are also travellers and customers as much as the people without disabilities and they deserve equal treatment. They have enough problems to think about before going for a holiday and they should not need to worry about the opinions of other tourists, locals nor hosts.

Bibliography

Bizjak B., Knezevic M., Cvetreznik S. (2011) Attitude Change Towards Guests with Disabilities: Reflections From Tourism Students Annals of Tourism Research, doi:10.1016/j.annals.2010.11.017 (Article in press)

TravelBlog, Gilson C. (2006) [Online] Disability Accommodation in My Own Country and Abroad Available from: http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Hong-Kong/Kowloon/blog-49808.html [Accessed on Tuesday 26th April 2011]

Yau, M, B McKercher and T Packer (2004) Travelling with a disability; more than an access issue. Annals of Tourism Research 31, 4 946-960
Travelling with Disability - More Stressful than You Think
Author: Lauri Kylanpaa
The author has chosen an interesting and relevant topic here as this is currently a highly debated and really problematic area in terms of tourism. The paper identifies several problems which usually act as barriers for tourists with disabilities and therefore often reduce their willingness to participate in leisure activities. It has been pointed out by previous academic works (e.g. Freudenberg & Arlinghause, 2010; Burns et al., 2009; Daniels et al., 2005) as well as in this paper that although much of the literature is focused on the physical barriers facing disabled tourists, the 'intrapersonal' constraints, in other words, each person's own physical, psychological or cognitive functioning levels, are actually the most significant barriers affecting to tourism participation as feelings of incapability in tourism activity may often create feelings of helplessness and exclusion.

The author states in the paper that 'the staff and other people in the destination are usually concentrated on the accessibility rather than psychological perspective of the customers stay when in reality listening and understanding the customer's needs is as important as accessibility if not even more significant.' This can be seen as a major problem because very little is actually known of how disabled visitors view and experience, for example, outdoor destinations, and thus the staff is often poorly prepared to help individuals with disabilities (Daniels et al., 2005).

Furthermore it was stated that 'disabled people are not only people with disabilities but they are also travellers and customers as much as the people without disabilities and they deserve equal treatment.' However, perhaps receiving 'equal treatment' is still not enough. Even though some legislative acts such as Disability Discrimination Act 1995 (DDA) has been created to improve the rights of disabled people, their functionality in practice is debatable. For example the DDA makes it now only 'illegal for service providers, including attractions and accommodation establishments, to discriminate against people with disabilities' (Shaw & Coles, 2004 pp.397). In other words, it basically requires the service providers to treat people with disabilities in the same way than those without disabilities. However, one may argue that people with disabilities often need some extra adjustments and help as they do face much more barriers than those without disabilities. Therefore the service providers may often only accomplish the required physical adjustments but may not actually improve their services further to help people with disabilities, which indicates that there is clearly a lack of provision for disabled tourists (Daniels et al., 2005). This may also create frustration and reduce their willingness to participate in tourism, as they may feel that all the leisure activities are not for them. This is something that calls for discussion and needs more attention.

However, the author makes a really good point by identifying that although the physical access plays an important role in terms of holidays, there are also many other and even important barriers that have to be taken into account in order to provide a positive tourist experience for disabled. As Smith (1987) stated, the combination of constraints influencing disabled travellers may decrease their travel satisfaction. Therefore, even if it would be impossible to remove some of the physical barriers, it is important to aim to remove at least those barriers that can be removed (i.e. attitudinal, psychological), and thus to avoid the accummulation of constraints. However, in order to make this happen, it is essential to know what the disabled tourists really want and need, which requires co-operation and discussion between the service providers and disabled customers, as they are the ones who really know what is required for a good holiday experience.

References:

Burns, N. et al. (2009), 'An inclusive outdoors? Disabled people's experiences of countryside leisure services', Leisure Studies, Vol. 28 (4), 403-417

Daniels, M. J. et al. (2005), '"Travel Tales": an interpretive analysis of constraints and negotiations to pleasure travel as experienced by persons with physical disabilities', Tourism Management, Vol. 26, 919-930

Freudenberg, P. & Arlinghaus, R. (2009) 'Benefits and Constraints of Outdoor Recreation for People with Physical Disabilities: Inferences from Recreational Fishing', Leisure Sciences, Vol. 32 (1), 55-71

Shaw, G. & Coles, T. (2004) 'Disability, holiday making and the tourism industry in the UK: a preliminary survey', Tourism Management, vol. 25, 397-403

Smith, R. W. (1987) 'Leisure of disabled tourists: Barriers to participation', Annals of Tourism Research, Vol. 14, 376-389

Travelling with Disability - More Stressful than You Think
Author: Sergejs Makarovs
The reason for commenting on this conference paper is that it looks at one similar issue as discussed in my study, according barriers faced by people with disabilities while participating in tourism activities. There is a growing population among the disabled people and nevertheless there are a number of unique barriers which people with disabilities face during tourism participation (Card, 2003). I will definitely agree with the author that one of the biggest barriers is the society's attitude towards disable people.

It is argued that after implementation of Disability Discrimination Act 1995 (DDA 1995) not all service providers have adjusted their premises in order to be accessible for people with disabilities and SPARC (2000) confirms it, by stating that little action since then been taken within the tourism industry in order to address to the needs of people with disabilities. It was identified by Daniels, Rodgers and Wiggins (2005) that the lack of physical access can be compensated by pleasant attitudes from staff, other travellers or local residents.

You have mentioned that service provides and travellers without disabilities often act in such manner that undermines the pleasure of travel experience. According to Bedini (2000), attitudes can be the most powerful barriers which people with disability face to pursuit a leisure experience. While there can be done some progress in removing environmental problems and adapting for the needs of people with different disabilities, it is not possible to control the negative attitudes of society towards people with disabilities. There is a general public misconception that people with disabilities do not require holiday (SPARC, 2000). Historically, people with disabilities have been subjected to negative attitudes from "able-bodied" members of their communities" (Bedini, 2000, p.56). Even nowadays, people without disabilities behave with disabled as not normal people, animals or children (Shaw, 2007). Disabled means different, therefore people with disabilities are often avoided or rejected by society (Bedini, 2000). It is important to change these perceptions, what possibly will lead to more accessible environment for people with disabilities.

As regards to the staff working in tourism industry, they lack an awareness of disability and usually cannot meet the needs of this market segment. According to SPARC (2000) "Staff often feel uncomfortable and "awkward" in service situations; sometimes appear patronizing; have no real knowledge of specific needs and requirements …. - and at worst display discriminatory attitudes which are often borne out of ignorance".

I also would like to add about the website accessibility for the vision impaired. People with disabilities rely on information a lot. Informal information sources, especially recommendations of friends, family and other disabled people who previously visited the destination, hotel or site are most influential for people with disabilities (EnjoyEngland, 2008). Indeed, Internet is the second most important information source, however it mostly used as ground work and is supplemented by phone calls and other checks (EnjoyEngland, 2008).

In conclusion, your work outlines important barriers and it shows how people with disabilities are discriminated in society. DDA 1995 was a good step towards a creation of a more inclusive society, however there is a big need for society to accept and adapt to people with disabilities in order to provide them an accessible tourism.

References:

Bedini, L.A. (2000) "Just sit down so we can talk": Perceived stigma and community recreation pursuits of people with disabilities. Therapeutic Recreation Journal, 34(1), pp. 55 - 68.

EnjoyEngland (2008) Access consumer research [online]. [cited 10th May 2011]. Available at: < http://www.enjoyengland.com/Images/National%20Accessible%20Scheme%20-%20Consumer%20Research_tcm21-174161.pdf>.

SPARC (2000) Meeting tourism needs for people with disabilities in South Pembrokeshire - a market overview [online]. [cited 10th May 2011]. Available at: < http://www.planed.org.uk/Download/tourism/Tourism%20Needs%20for%20People%20with%20Disabilities%20-%20Campbell%20Ass%202000.pdf>.
Travelling with Disability - More Stressful than You Think
Author: Hanna-Mari Akkala
The reason for commenting on this particular paper is that I have looked at similar issues on my conference paper. This is an important and very current topic; the disabled market is growing in size in the next decades as people are expected to live longer and old age brings disabilities, communicable diseases are expected to decrease, medical technology improves all the time and child mortality improves.(Yau et al. 2004), and this offers a lot of opportunities for tourism providers. Still, this market is often ignored and the literature is quite narrow.

The author makes a good point about the importance of understanding the customer and giving helpful and positive service, not only taking care of the accessibility. "The staff and other people in the destination are usually concentrated on the accessibility rather than psychological perspective of the customers stay when in reality listening and understanding the customer's needs is as important as accessibility if not even more significant." This is one of the reasons disabled people often become very loyal customers to the travel agency they are satisfied with.

A relevant point has made that "Travellers with disabilities are similar to those travellers without disabilities in a context of pleasure travel as they enjoy the similar activities during their stay. There are many people with disabilities who do not travel, because it takes a lot more effort to book a holiday for disabled than for a person without disability." Perhaps a relevant area to explore is how booking a holiday could be made easier and how disabled people could be encouraged more to travel as the author mentions as well that there are plenty of people with disabilities that do want to travel.

The author has very well discussed the issues of other peoples' attitudes towards disabled travellers and how this affects to their travelling and decision-making. Relevant points has made about the other difficulties that disabled travellers face like the access issues that are important. The author could have add to this other difficulties, like the financial issues which are an obstacle for many of the disabled travellers, and what kind of support has been offered for disabled travellers or the lack of information available when planning the trip.

The author has highlighted how important the service and especially the attitude of the staff are. Legislative acts like Disability Discrimination Act 1995 (DDA) has been created to treat people with disabilities in the same way than those without disabilities. There are still a lot to learn what it comes to service skills in tourism and hospitality industry and the equality of disabled travellers. I agree with the author with the point addressed that "the society needs to become more aware of the expectations of disabled people". Would be interesting to hear the author's opinion of how could the attitudes of people be changed?
Overall this was very interesting and relevant paper, highlighting and addressing many issues of travelling with disability.

References:

Yau, M, B McKercher and T Packer (2004) Travelling with a disability; more than an access issue. Annals of Tourism Research 31, 4 946-960