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.