Resources

The European Network for Accessible Tourism (ENAT) has been working on access issues for over two years; however this week they reached another milestone -- they are now officially registered as a non-profit organization in Belgium. Three cheers for them.

The organization, which was originally founded by the European Commission, aims to help the hospitality industry meet the needs of disabled travelers; by showing them that there is a market for accessible services and teaching them how to better serve this former niche market. Interestingly enough they also address the access needs of families with small children, who basically need barrier-free pathways for their strollers. Personally I think it’s smart tying these two groups together, as they represent more tourism dollars.

One of ENAT’s goals is to introduce an "Accessible Tourism Compliance Label" as part of a quality assurance scheme for tourism providers. Although the idea is good, I think they need to work on the name a little -- it’s just not sexy enough, and travel needs to be fun and sexy. In any case, the UK already has a scheme to identify the level of access (wheelchair-user or slow walker), but this would be something along the lines of meeting a minimum level of access.

It will be interesting to see if they can pull it off and in the end what they come up with for their access criteria. Years ago I sat on a board which tried to determine access criteria for a guidebook. It was a cross disability board, so while the seniors wanted high toilets, the wheelers wanted lower ones. I was utterly amazed at the amount of discourse a mere commode caused. In any case, the criteria ended up being way too cumbersome and in the end the project flopped.

So I wish ENAT much success. And I also have to say that I’m glad I’m just reporting about the issue and not involved in crafting the criteria. Like I said, it got real messy before and I don’t really have any desire to repeat that experience!

In this day and age of heightened access awareness, it’s not uncommon to hear about large cities and even states coming out with access guides. And that’s a very good thing.

But I’m always amazed when I hear about a small city that takes the time to research and publish access information about their hotels, restaurants and attractions. Such is the case with Lincoln City, Oregon, who just released the first edition of their on-line access guide.

And they went a little further than just putting a little blue wheelchair next to some selected attractions and properties.

To be honest, I was quite impressed with the attention to detail of their access criteria. They included information such as a barrier-free access from the parking lot, the height of the check-in counter and minimum clearance spaces around furniture. Two things I would have also included are bed-height and the availability of opened framed beds -- but hey, maybe next time. They also included blocked rooms (even though they mistakenly called it guaranteed reservations) so that’s good too.

Still it’s a good chunk of information and I applaud them for doing it. Plus thanks to the internet, they didn’t have to kill any trees or spend big bucks to print the guide.

Kudos to the folks in Lincoln City for realizing the need for this information and for following through and completing the project. Perhaps more small cities will follow suit.

Barrier-free travel crossed over into the mainstream media again, when Ian and Tonya Fitzpatrick interviewed me on their Travel’n On radio show, which was broadcast yesterday on Voice of America. Click here to hear the show, which included my insights on the accessible travel market, travel tips, destination choices and a little bit about my work.

It’s nice to see more and more mainstream media outlets addressing this former "niche" market.

If a trip to Chicago is in your future, or you just want to lean about access in the windy city, then there’s some good news on the horizon for you; Chicago released its first access guide last week.

Patterned after the popular Access San Francisco produced by Access Northern California; Easy Access Chicago contains detailed access information on hotels, transportation, tourist sights and restaurants in Chicago. And the great news is, it’s available free from the  Illinois Bureau of Tourism.

Easy Access Chicago is also available as a PDF file on the Easy Access Chicago website at www.EasyAccessChicago.org. The website actually contains more access information than the print version of the guide, plus it includes a handy advanced search feature that allows users to customize their hotel searches. So for example, if you were looking for a hotel in the loop with an open frame bed and a restaurant, you would just check those boxes and a list of properties matching that criteria would be returned.

And in the interest of full disclosure, I have to also say that hubby Charles designed the Easy Access Chicago website and the associated database. I had nothing really to do with it except maybe say, "Yeah I like the periwinkle", and to offer up some moral support now and again. Still, in this election year, full disclosure is always good.

In any case, congratulations to the folks at Open Doors Organization, and to Laurel Van Horn who was in charge of this gargantuan project. As always, it’s nice to see one more access resource out there.