Leaders in Inclusive Tourism

Leaders in this field tends to draw their motivation and resilience these two poles - meeting market opportunity and leaving social inclusion as a legacy of justice.

In this section you will find interviews profiling leaders in Inclusive Tourism. The interviewers are themselves often active in the field making this section a network of trustworthy sources of experts.

Laurel Van Horn and José Isola have written the first history of Inclusive Tourism, Toward a Global History of Inclusive Travel, with an emphasis on key organizations and events. This section profiles individual leaders who have moved the tourism industry toward inclusion of travelers with disabilities. Van Horn and Isola note:

While the history of accessible travel and tourism is intertwined with the disability rights and independent living movements, sharing their triumphs and setbacks, it has its own land­mark events, advocacy organizations, heroes and villains.

Initially a beneficiary of the struggle for accessible transportation and public facilities and services in North America and Western Eu­rope, tourism that accommodates the needs of travelers with disabilities has by now become, in the words of the World Tourism Organization, a "motor of accessibility" worldwide (1997). This opinion was echoed by UN ESCAP at the Asia-Pacific Conference on Tourism for People with Disabilities (2000):

"In view of the changing consumer de­mand, tourism for all is an increasingly important sales argument in a competitive market. At the same time, it can serve as an effective tool in furthering the human rights of people with disabilities in the destination communities."

Source: Toward a Global History of Inclusive Travel, Laurel Van Horn, and José Isola




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