Announcing the Inclusive Tourism Marketing Toolkit Workbook for collecting key information on Accommodation and Resorts Prepared by Travability Pty. Ltd. Phone 0417 690 533 Email bill@travability.travel
(First in a multi-part series of dispatches on the Thai tourism industry 25 years after Visit Thailand Year)
BANGKOK: 25 years after the historic 1987 Visit Thailand Year, a number of industry veterans are voicing concern about the state of the industry and its future directions. With the number of arrivals skyrocketing, and future growth almost guaranteed for a host of reasons, there is apprehension about the growing gap between quality and quantity. A substantial consensus is emerging for the industry to start adopting the sufficiency economy philosophy of King Bhumibhol Adulyadej as a future development strategy.
One industry veteran speaking out is former Tourism Authority of Thailand Governor Dharmnoon Prachuabmoh, who was one of the key planners of 1987 Visit Thailand Year, played a major role in another industry landmark, the 1992 Visit ASEAN Year (VAY) and also spent years on the PATA board of directors, including a stint as chairman. He feels that the Ministry of Tourism and Sports has not lived up to expectations, the country's huge popular island resorts are in need of carrying capacity controls and there is a long overdue requirement for quality human resources development institutions. He also feels the visa-regimes need to be revisited to better balance security concerns and tourism earnings.
His views are supported by other industry veterans such as Mr. Prapansak Bhatayanond, former General Manager of the Erawan hotel before it became the Grand Hyatt, Mr. Opas Netra-umpai, a former senior executive of the TAT and Mrs Bilaibhan Sampatsiri, owner and managing director of the Swissotel Nailert Park and chairman of the Siam Society, one of Thailand's foremost heritage and cultural organisations. Mrs Bilaibhan especially is concerned about whether one of the bedrocks of Thai tourism, its deep-rooted culture, is being gradually eroded both by tourism as well as all the surrounding winds of change sweeping through Thailand.
Full story:
OpenTravel Alliance (OpenTravel), a travel industry distribution specification and standards development organization, announces the publication of the 2011B version of its schema.
Included in this version were some changes to hotel schema that focused on a subset of the 2010 ADA(Americans with Disabilities Act) legislation that specifically applies to electronic hotel reservations and includes:
Disabled climber is undaunted by Everest challenge
No challenge is too big and no mountain too high for Sudarshan Gautam. Gautam is preparing to climb Mount Everest this year, but he'll attempt the summit without something most people think is essential for a mountaineer - arms.
http://www.calgaryherald.com/health/Disabled+climber+undaunted+Everest+challenge/5933884/story.html
Centre for disability studies inaugurated
GUWAHATI: The Gauwahati University, in collaboration with NTPC Limited, started an information communication training centre (ITC) at the department of disability study on Wednesday. The aim behind this training center is to encourage students with disability to pursue higher education in the field of science and technology.
Source: CBR Forum - E- News Bulletin
MIUSA's Women's Institute on Leadership and Disability (WILD) will bring together approximately 30 women leaders with disabilities from approximately 30 different countries, to strengthen leadership skills, create new visions and build international networks of support for inclusive international development programming.
During the three-week program, participants will take part in workshops, seminars and discussions, conduct on-site visits, and participate in team-building activities, to explore challenges and exchange strategies for increasing leadership opportunities and participation of women and girls with disabilities in international development programs.
The WILD program will include interactive workshops, site visits and practical activities on priority issues for women with disabilities, including:
· National and International Policies and Legislation, including the UN Convention of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) Disability Policy
· Educational rights and opportunities including specialized and inclusive schools, policy and legal rights, services and accommodations for accessibility
· Leadership for economic empowerment, including higher education, training models, supported employment, microenterprise, private sector partnerships, career mentorship, skill-building, employment policy, and career development.
· Health and family issues including parenting, health care, HIV/AIDS, reproductive health and violence prevention
· Using the media
· Coalition building
· Organizational development and sustainability, including funding resources and strategies, and fostering partnerships with community organizations and businesses
· Goals and action plans to promote collaborative relationships with other organizations for the inclusion of women and girls with disabilities in international development programs.
· Inclusive international development, including exchanging strategies for inclusion with representatives from U.S-based international development organizations and/or human rights organizations
· Cultural and team-building experiences
· Mentorship and networking
For more information or to download an application go to:http://www.miusa.org/exchange/currentprogs/wild/wild2012/index_html
The official languages of WILD are English, Arabic, Spanish and American Sign Language (ASL). Participants must have at least conversational ability in English and/or be familiar with ASL.
From DREDF:
Access to public transportation is a key to independence and full community participation for people with disabilities. The Americans with Disabilities Act sets forth specific requirements for transit systems including fixed route buses, light and heavy rail systems, ADA complementary paratransit, over-the-road buses, shuttles, and other forms of publicly and privately-funded public transportation. DREDF advocates for the development and implementation of strong, comprehensive ADA transportation requirements, works toward additional accessible transportation service, and provides in-depth training for people with disabilities and others on ADA transportation that includes current policy developments and best practices.
More:
Auditions for Youth Advocates with Disabilities
Be a part of an exciting Global Disability Advocacy and Education Project! If you are between the ages of 12-30, you are eligible to be part of a global education project. You may be selected to share your voice in a user generated disability etiquette video. For more information please contact Elizabeth Pope Program Coordinator, World Enabled/Pineda Foundation for Youth at: liz@pinedafoundation.orgAfter signing up you will receive instructions on how to audition. The Deadline to Apply is: February 10, 2012. The Online application can be found here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?rm=full&formkey=dFp1Vk1HdllJUXB5S2d0MS14cW93MlE6MQ
Contact:
Elizabeth PopeProgram Coordinator, Pineda Foundation for Youth
Desde El Peridi.com:
El Museu de La Vila, una de las principales colecciones de la Comunidad Valenciana, da un paso crucial en su historia al convertirse en Vilamuseu. Uno de los pilares del nuevo museo será la accesibilidad integral; para ello, el equipo de Joan Sibina Arquitectes Associats (Barcelona) ha realizado, bajo la dirección de la Sección Municipal de Arqueología, Etnografía y Museos, dependiente de la Concejalía de Patrimonio Histórico del Ayuntamiento de La Vila Joiosa, el proyecto museístico (no confundir con el proyecto arquitectónico) que utiliza todos los sentidos, incluyendo los requisitos de la norma UNE 170001 y los últimos avances tecnológicos en accesibilidad.
El concejal de Cultura y Patrimonio Histórico del Ayuntamiento de La Vila Joiosa, Pepe Lloret, ha explicado que "la identidad corporativa busca transmitir la accesibilidad de Vilamuseu a través de la gráfica, al incorporar las iniciales de vila y museu, V y M, en braille (alfabeto para personas con discapacidad visual). De este modo, el compromiso que el consistorio vilero adquiere en Vilamuseu es absoluto. Es, que sepamos, el primer museo que incorpora el braille en su logotipo, como símbolo de toda una filosofía, de una apuesta que permitirá a mucha más gente disfrutar del extraordinario patrimonio de La Vila Joiosa".
Leer mas:
http://www.elperiodic.com/villajoyosa/noticias/156102_vilamuseu-sera-museos-accesibles-mundo.html
From Michael Janger:
In advertising, the inclusion of people with disabilities is a double-edged sword: is it intended to highlight the disability, or the person, or both? If the disability is highlighted, it is usually because the business is selling products that accommodate the disability.
For companies that do not directly sell to people with disabilities, utilizing a person with a disability in an advertisement is a delicate exercise, because popular culture in America today tends to exclude people with disabilities from its meme. The good news: this is not the 1950's, as people today are more aware of the economic power and influence of people with disabilities and their contributions to society. Yet if advertising practices today are any indication, people with disabilities still have a long way to go to be considered an integral part of popular culture. In a country where almost 20% of the population has a disability, this is a big slice of American society we are missing out on.
Two weeks ago, Target announced a special post-Christmas sale for kids' t-shirts ($5 each!) and kids' pants ($7 each!), through this advertisement on its website. It was just like any other promotion peddled by one of the United States's largest department stores. As with most retailers recovering from the Christmas shopping season, Target needed to clear out its inventory, and the $5 and $7 sales were meant to grab the attention of consumers and encourage them to buy clothes for their kids.
Rick Smith noticed something about this advertisement, only because of his own one-year-old son, who has Down syndrome. On the left side of the Target advertisement was a blond-haired kid wearing an orange- and brown-colored long-sleeve shirt. If you saw this kid and did not think twice, you were probably like most others who were interested in the shirt he wore and whether they should buy it from Target.
This ad needs no caption.
Target did not highlight the fact that Ryan Langston - the name of the kid in the orange shirt - has Down syndrome. He has some of the classic physical features of this condition, but that was not the point of the advertisement. All Target was doing was selling kid's apparel, and using cute kids to send the message. They did not even announce the kid in any of its press releases.
Thrilled about the non-announcement of Ryan and his disability, Rick Smith wrote about Target's advertisement on his blog, Noah's Dad. Disability advocates and others saw his post, and in a matter of hours it went viral. Rick told me, two days after his post, of his amazement at finding over 8,000 likes on his blog post (it is now over 21,000 as of this writing).
Read more:
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Obama on Amerca's #1 service export - tourism. How will it be accessible and inclusive? Bill Forrester has one answer below.
The seven principles of Universal Design in Georgian. Visit Georgia with Parsa: http://parsa.ge/
Slowly, slowly, very slowly the imperative of Universal Design as urban planning is trickling into US thought. Here John Lorinc helps the process along:
When he worked as the parks commissioner in Bogotá, Gil Penalosa helped trigger a quality of urban life revolution of sorts by promoting car-free Sundays - "ciclovias" -- on hundreds of kilometers of the streets around the Colombian capital. As this video shows, over 1.3 million residents each week would take to their bikes or participate in festivals and activities throughout Bogotá. In so doing, they boosted both their enjoyment of the city and their own fitness levels, thus creating a lively, low-emission sense of community for people from all walks of life, so to speak.
In his current gig as the executive director of Toronto-based 8-80 Cities, Penalosa travels the world with a trenchant question that arose out of those experiences: how do we create cities in which both 8-year-olds and 80-year-olds can move about safely and enjoyably? "We have to stop building cities as if everyone is 30 years-old and athletic," he says.
His 8 to 80 litmus test involves imagining a public space, but especially a busy city street or intersection, and asking whether it is suitable for young and old alike. In all too many locations - signalized crossings on wide suburban arterials, narrow bike lanes, over-taxed sidewalks, etc. - the answer will be no.
By way of solutions, Penalosa's group has advised cities like Seville and Guadalajara on the importance of more accessible surface transit, improved cycling and pedestrian infrastructure, and more programmable park space.
But in many aging societies, where the proportion of seniors will grow as much as four-fold over the next two decades, public space improvements alone won't make large urban areas, especially car-dependent suburbs, more suitable to the needs of older residents. Indeed, one of the most difficult questions facing urban areas is how they will go about making themselves more age-friendly.
Accessibility is obviously a big piece of the puzzle. In Japan, where the aging curve is further along, planning officials and architects have promoted "universal design" principles that can be found in such amenities as multi-generational housing meant to address the shortage of caregivers.
Read more:
http://www.theatlanticcities.com/design/2012/01/8-80-problem-designing-cities-young-and-old/959/
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