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Sustainable and accessible tourism in natural areas: a participatory approach.

Authors :
Sisto, Roberta
Cappelletti, Giulio Mario
Bianchi, Piervito
Sica, Edgardo
Source :
Current Issues in Tourism; Apr2022, Vol. 25 Issue 8, p1307-1324, 18p
Publication Year :
2022

Abstract

An emerging segment of tourism demand is represented by accessible tourism, i.e. tourism activated in public spaces in the absence of any kind of barrier (architectural, cultural, sensorial, attitudinal, communicational and informational barriers) and, from a business competitiveness point of view, accessibility represents the precondition of any sustainable tourism policy and strategy. In this paper, we concentrate on tourism accessibility for people with disabilities. In particular, to better understand and overcome all obstacles that could impede travellers with special needs from enjoying their tourism experience, in literature is argued that the entire process of defining guidelines to improve tourism accessibility should follow a participatory approach from drafting to implementation. Therefore, to plan services for disabled people in addition to the mandatory requirements, our aim for the present paper is to apply a participatory approach involving stakeholders in the definition of a trademark specification. The experiment was applied to a protected natural area, namely the Gargano National Park (Southern Italy). Results confirm the relevance of adopting a participatory approach to involve stakeholders in the definition of a trademark specification granting disabled tourists with a wider accessibility to protected areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Details

Language :
English
ISSN :
13683500
Volume :
25
Issue :
8
Database :
Complementary Index
Journal :
Current Issues in Tourism
Publication Type :
Academic Journal
Accession number :
156246500
Full Text :
https://doi.org/10.1080/13683500.2021.1920002