Inclusive tourism opens up the world, literally. It creates more opportunities for participation in tourism activities, and makes enjoyment more likely because it reduces uncertainty. Not to mention greatly reducing travel planning time!

It creates choice and installs confidence for people to sign up for new experiences.

So who benefits when tourism is inclusive? The ageing population, people who use wheelchairs, children, people with temporary mobility limitations, people with prams, people with hearing or vision impairments, people who speak English as a second language – just about everyone.

For business owners it is an opportunity to set yourself apart. Focus on how you can, and do cater for a wide range of guests. No detail is too small when considering what your customers will appreciate. Take into consideration the whole journey, from the planning stage through to when your customers arrive through to when they check out and continue to review your operation from a customer perspective.

Inclusive tourism incorporates Universal Design a framework for the design of places, things, information, communication and policy to be usable by the widest range of people operating in the widest range of situations without special or separate design.

Variation on human ability is ordinary, not special and affects most of for some part of our lives. Institute for Human Centred Design.

Thanks to the support of the South Australian (SA) community, The Paraplegic and Quadriplegic Association of SA and the Department of Families and Social Inclusion, Push Adventures have received funding to enhance 30 SA tourism experiences over the next 12 months.

In particular we focus on tourism opportunities for people with physical disabilities.

This is where our experience and knowledge comes into play. Young, ambitious and using a wheelchair, we travelled through Europe on a shoestring budget eight years ago. Utilising the public train network and backpacking as much as possible we encountered just about every physical and attitudinal barrier a wheelchair user could imagine. However optimism, resilience and a sense of humour is something we did have so we kept on going building an unbelievable archive of experiences, but that is another story. Shortly after returning home we came to the realisation that these hurdles exist in South Australia and we now have the means to make a positive impact on the SA tourism industry.

Inclusive tourism is a lucrative market. By taking steps to be more inclusive you’re appealing to a wider range of tourists with differing abilities. A welcoming smile and attitude will positively influence an experience. And this starts with looking at your own attitude towards inclusion, as all barriers aren’t of the physical kind. Your attitude can be the difference between being physically accessible to being inclusive to all.

Providing detailed visitor information on your website and in your marketing materials, or providing an electronic device that runs an audio/visual or alternative language option of your tour are easy to implement examples of how to be more inclusive.

Nowhere is 100% inclusive for everyone, but we can help you in identifying and promote how your business caters for a range of people and provides an “inclusive’’ tourism experience.

WANT TO BE MORE INCLUSIVE?

Do you operate a South Australian tourism service and want to ensure you are doing all you can to welcome the 3.5 million Australians with a disability and/ or the 4 million Australians aged over 65 years, get in touch. Push Adventures works with you to implement cost effective and easy solutions to become more inclusive. We have a limited opportunity to work with those who want to be seen as leaders in this space.
Learn more about Push Adventures.

More about Inclusive Tourism:

Accessible Tourism ‘an untapped market’

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