CHAPTER 20. ACCESSIBLE TOURISM III

Once anyone decides to build a new construction, first of all he has to get a valid building permit which has to be supervised by the Municipal Technical Services in order to be approved. This is the most difficult part of the whole process, because you will experience the unsuitable town-planning legislation, being affected by three different laws with different development. As regards accessibility, on one side, there is a general National legislation about construction and another specific one, recent to be in force, named Building Technical Code (CTE); on the other side, there is a profuse regional legislation due to competences assumed by the Autonomous Governments in each Spanish region. Furthermore, each particular city or village has its own particular laws that can be applied. All this laws’ mix-up becomes in an endless pilgrimage window to window trying to conciliate many resolutions that sometimes offer different duties for the same matter. As a result of this “law-shake”, one person who decides to create a new touristic resource is never sure at all about the accessibility he offers in his facilities. After all this approval process, there is another question to be considered: the way construction companies carry out their job and respect the original project. Very often, a good design can be ruined by a bad execution.

CHAPTER 19. ACCESSIBLE TOURISM II

First of all, it’s important to distinguish every disability and learn the way to name each one correctly. We can’t refer to people with disabilities like “disabled person”, because they are not disabled, they have a disability. That’s why the correct term is “person with disability” or “person with a challenge” (visual challenge, hearing challenge, mobility challenge or reduced mobility …). This is a subtle difference, but it’s important to start to change the way people think about disability.
Recognizing that every kind of disability has its own specific characteristics which impede people to get full accessibility, there are however some common actions which can ensure a high level of accessibility for the highest percentage of this community. There is no doubt that the main difficulties are those related to architectural barriers and signposting both indoor and outdoor, however it’s relatively easy to adapt the way of building in order to allow an universal access which becomes in an improvement for everybody. Against many people think about, money is not the main problem. Building an accessible environment is not much more expensive than not to do it. Many times it's just a matter of willingness.

CHAPTER 18. PROFESSIONAL OR NOT

Nowadays tourism has to face many problems, like the economical crisis, fuel prices, air fares, weather conditions, social riots and more. Most part of those events is not under control of the tourism worker. However, there is a question that bothers people more than any other one: employees who don’t work in a professional way. This appears to be a minor problem compared to others, but if you think that the only contact you’ll have with the company which provides you any service is through this inefficient employee, the matter becomes more important. You can see this kind of workers everywhere in tourism places and their behavior is really harmful for tourism industry. I’ve noticed this kind of people is found often in small family companies, like rural or snow houses and hotels. In some of these lodges, it’s usual they change your reservations depending on their needs, without any respect to the books they’ve made before. It happens sometimes that you book for two nights, you have the booking confirmed, and after the confirmation, you receive a call, trying to force you to book for one o two more extra nights without previous notice, and without any other reason than “because I’m the manager and if you don’t like it, I don’t care, that’s just the way it is”. Of course they have the right to establish the minimum amount of nights they want to be booked, but always in advance, not after the booking is confirmed. Worst of all, there is no effective way to complain about those abuses but to look for another place and don’t play the game with this kind of business men.

CHAPTER 17. ACCESSIBLE TOURISM I

Past week, I participated in a course about Accessible Tourism, sponsored by Turgalicia and taught by Predif, an organization with no profit motive in mind, dedicated to promote the quality of life to people with disability. To a person like me, who didn’t know the problems that people with any disability have to face every day, was a way to become aware about the difficulties they find daily in their life. We did a simple test: I tried to walk around a square garden with a black mask, and even with a person by my side guiding me, it was incredibly difficult and the feeling of insecurity was brutal. That’s why I think it’s necessary to throw away all the prejudices and get conscience about how accessibility is the best solution for all of us. Even if you don’t agree with this statement, just think: at any time in your life you can be injured in an accident, you can be sick, you will walk pushing a baby-trolley and, that’s for sure, you’ll grow old. In every one of these situations, you are temporarily a person with disability, and you will appreciate accessible buildings, sidewalks, doors, stairs, parking places, toilets, transports, etc… Furthermore all this measures are directly related and conditioning tourism.
Accessibility involves many different sides, in many levels. There is a legal framework, there are different needs depending on the kind of disability, sometimes hard to conciliate, and finally, there are individuals, each one of them with its own special needs. I think this is an important remark. A person with disability is not a kind of person, is an individual, and as an individual must be considered.