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
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