THE CONTRIBUTION OF THE GEOGRAPHY OF DISABILITY TO THE DEVELOPMENT OF ‘ACCESSIBLE TOURISM’

The article presents an outline of the evolution of the geography of disability (since the 1930s) taking into account significant issues in the creation of theoretical foundations as well as practical action in ‘accessible tourism’. It may be considered a review. Based on an analysis of literature, the first section presents a definition of ‘accessible tourism’ and the development of the geography of disability, the result of which is the geographical model of disability. The second section is a synthetic presentation of the effect of geographical research on the development of theoretical accessible tourism concepts and their implications in practice. The final conclusions highlight the need to identify the level of detail in universal design principles applied to buildings, spaces, services, which are to fulfil the criteria of accessibility for people with various types of disability.

Turystyka i rekreacja a jakość życia mieszkańców Leszna

The quality of life (QOL) is currently one of the main fields of study for researchers around the world. Its complex nature makes it a topic of interest for many different fields, such as philosophy, ethics, medicine, economics, sociology and physical culture sciences. Despite the differences in the way various researches define the QOL, the general agreement is that any measurement of QOL should encompass the following dimensions: objective QOL and subjective QOL (well-being). Particularly noteworthy, for any complex research is the mutual relationship between the QOL and tourism and recreation. The increase of tourism and recreation should entail a simultaneous development of local communities, as emphasized by Crouch and Ritchie this implies that the inhabitants of an area that serves a function of tourism and recreation should profit from the increased number of tourists. This benefits should be reflected in the objective QOL conditions and the subjective sense of satisfaction of the residents. The city of Leszno and it’s tourism and recreation-oriented development strategy were used to form a basis for theoretical study on QOL and to calculate the Tourism-Recreation QOL Index.

Attitudes of Future Tourism Sector Employees Towards Organise Accessible Tourism

The aim of this paper is to show a theoretical approach to the evolution of concepts perceiving disability, taking into account the medical, social, and geographical models, as the basis for the development of principles concerning the organisation of accessible tourism for people with disabilities (PwD). The main research objective was to identify the current attitudes of future, potential employees in the tourism (tourism and recreation students at the time of the study) towards accessible tourism. The study was based on surveys performed in May 2013 at the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań (UAM, Poland) and the State University in Irkutsk (ИГУ, Russia), a total sample of 216 people. The main section of the survey contained four questions regarding issues such as: optimal ways to organise tourism products for people with a disability; attitudes towards spending leisure time together with people with a disability; and specific requirements concerning the introduction of various types of improvements in tourism products aimed at people with a disability. In both cases, the results revealed that future tourism employees hold attitudes which are prevailingly open and positive towards the needs of tourists with disabilities. However, the hypothesis that the main factor influencing a reluctance to enter into contact with PwD is a lack of experience in this area, resulting in insufficient knowledge of what conditions the behaviour of PwD was also confirmed. This is a highly significant conclusion which should consider if mandatory educational programmes in the field of tourism and recreation studies are to be improved.