SMEs Delivering Accessible, Sustainable and Competitive Tourism for All
Inclusive Tourism in South America: Responsible, Sustainable, and Inclusive Development
Tourism for All Network
Responsible, Sustainable, and Inclusive Development
in Tourist Destinations
Introduction
This project was prepared by the Inter-American Institute on Disability and Inclusive Development and its partners in order to respond to a huge but unmet demand by tourists, especially from the United States, Europe, and Asia, who use sea cruises because of their supposed advantages in terms of accessibility.
We are referring mainly to retired and elderly individuals who enjoy the time, money, and desire to travel, but who have reduced mobility, generally due to physical, visual, and hearing limitations, among others. This population group has also increased its life expectancy, thus guaranteeing a growing market in the long term.
The project is based on respect for human diversity as a means to achieve economic and social development, mainly for previously excluded low-income local populations.
Vision
The project’s vision is to comprehensively apply the principles of sustainability and social inclusion to tourist destinations, aiming to promote infrastructural, socioeconomic, and cultural changes that improve quality of life and well-being for both visitors and local residents.
Overall Objective
The main objective is to create a network of tourist destinations based on integrated, comprehensive plans for environmental management, accessibility, and inclusive services for tourists with different levels of functional limitation, including elderly persons and persons with disabilities.
Specific Objectives
• Improve the services offered to tourists;
• Preserve the environment;
• Value local culture;
• Minimize discrimination, prejudice, and exclusion and promote social inclusion;
• Fight poverty and generate conditions for better income distribution;
• Sensitize the tourist industry, the population, and public administrators concerning such values as environmental sustainability, social inclusion, and responsible tourism;
• Raise the awareness of the population and public administrators concerning the social and economic benefits generated by practices ensuring environmental sustainability, inclusion, and responsible tourism;
Justification
American adults with disabilities or reduced mobility currently spend an average of 13.6 billion U.S. dollars a year on tourism. In 2002, these individuals made 32 million trips and spent 4.2 billion dollars on hotels, 3.3 billion on airline tickets, 2.7 billion on food and beverages, and 3.4 billion on trade, transportation, and other activities. The most popular international destinations for this tourist segment are: (1) Canada; (2) Mexico; (3) Europe; and (4) the Caribbean, in that order.
Out of a total of 21 million persons, 69% had traveled at least once in the previous two years, including 3.9 million business trips, 20 million tourist trips, and 4.4 million business/tourist trips. In the previous 2 years, out of a total of 2 million adults with disabilities or reduced mobility, 7% had spent more than 1,600 dollars outside the continental United States. In addition, 20% had traveled at least 6 times every 2 years.
A study by the Open Doors Organization estimated that in the year 2003, persons with disabilities or reduced mobility spent 35 billion dollars in restaurants. According to the same study, more than 75% of these people eat out at restaurants at least once a week. The United States Department of Labor reported that a large and growing market of Americans with disabilities or reduced mobility have 175 billion dollars in purchasing/consumer power.
In the United Kingdom, the Employers’ Forum on Disability estimated 10 million adults with disabilities or reduced mobility in the UK, with an annual purchasing power of 80 billion pounds sterling. The Canadian Conference Board reported that in 2001, the combined annual disposable income of economically active Canadians with disabilities or reduced mobility was 25 billion Canadian dollars.
The expected trend is for these figures to multiply as a function of the currently repressed demand if destinations begin to offer accessible and inclusive environments for all (unlike the currently inaccessible conditions in port destinations). We view this fact as a major opportunity to foster international and domestic tourism in the countries of South America, while generating possibilities for citizens’ education, poverty reduction, and local socioeconomic development.
In the case of Uruguay and Argentina, we have followed the development of local initiatives for the promotion of Tourism for All, especially considering the great potential for the development of social tourism in the Southern Cone. Further initiatives in this direction would be extremely useful and would encourage thousands of new visitors.
In the port of Rio de Janeiro alone, some 30 thousand potential visitors a year fail to come ashore due to lack of access. If we invest in the accessibility of ports, marketplaces, cultural centers, and transportation, hotel, and restaurant infrastructure, we are certain to attract the cruise industry, which currently fails to offer options for tourists with reduced mobility. The latter would then come ashore at the cruise destination cities and leave foreign exchange in the country.
Project Scope
The project’s central strategy is to tap a large but unexplored tourist market and make communities more socially and ecologically responsible, more economically balanced, and more inclusive for all – within a sustainable development model.
The proposal is to identify areas with a strong tourist appeal in key ports to be selected on the coast of the Southern Cone of Latin America, among those receiving domestic and international cruise ships. The idea is thus to survey the existing resources and opportunities, considering each port’s natural calling, and to seek support for installing an inclusive approach to what is already being done. The scope of activity includes public policies, services, and works and activities by private enterprise and the Third Sector and International Cooperation.
Different experimental modules are also planned according to each port’s own characteristics, functioning as “laboratories” for improving the approaches and capacities that can be multiplied elsewhere in the Southern Cone.
Key work areas
The project aims to create a pilot network of tourist destinations, establishing management plans involving the entire community, especially focused on tackling some specific points:
1) Access to infrastructure, applying basic standards of accessibility and universal design to the built-up environments and spaces, including ports, public marketplaces, tourist establishments, transportation, different historical-cultural and natural attractions, etc.; communications and information; and services provided to the tourist industry.
2) Tourism for All, training human resources and providing adequate equipment and technology in the search for solutions to allow access and full participation by tourists with different levels of functional capacity, including the elderly and persons with disabilities.
3) Environmental Management, principally tackling the solid waste problem through awareness-raising and environmental education programs for residents, business owners, public administrators, and tourists; and handling and final disposal of waste, training the existing communities of solid waste recyclers and training new persons to be integrated into a value chain associated with the use of solid waste as raw material for manufacturing and marketing articles targeting the tourist market.
4) Changes in attitudes and culture, based on the principles of an inclusive society, through educational and training programs for youth as agents in the struggle against violence and for health promotion and social inclusion.
Since each destination has its own special calling and interests, any area or project attuned to the inclusive and sustainable development approach and proposal can join at any time. Activities like fair trade, micro-credit, and a focus on diversity are both expected and welcome.
Since one of the project’s main thrusts is the fight against poverty and inequality, and in keeping with the Millennium Development Goals, the proposal provides for the implementation of social and socioeconomic development programs with underprivileged local populations through partnerships with NGOs, United Nations agencies (like the UNWTO, UNDP, UNICEF, UNESCO, ILO, and FAO), social entrepreneurship networks like Ashoka and Avina, and international cooperation in general.
Destinations to be selected
The Tourism for All Network will consist of key destinations in different countries, seeking to identify common criteria, guidelines, and quality standards that can serve as a future overall application across the local cultural specificities.
The project’s key thrust will be the transformation of international destinations in the South American sea cruise route. This strategy guarantees not only generating an automatic demand, with the resulting possibility of measurements for corrections and surveying market statistics, but also the monitoring and evaluation of the project’s results, considering that persons with disabilities and the elderly represent one of the main segments served by the cruise industry.
Financing and Sustainability
Since the initiative proposes to work with existing structures and programs, it avoids duplicating or creating special or limited sub-projects or even generating unnecessary costs. The idea is that partners joining the Network will commit themselves to an inclusive approach to be adopted within their range of activity, using their own resources or raising funds to meet needs in the their specific area. For example:
• If a city is doing public construction work in its urban infrastructure, it will incorporate elements of accessibility and universal design into the project, using its available budget resources. There are now data demonstrating that building accessible spaces does not add significant construction costs (maximum of 1%);
• If an NGO is working with children and adolescents in projects related to education for citizenship, with women in income generation projects, or others, these projects already have dedicated financing and will only need to adopt inclusive approaches and if possible those also focused on the tourist market, if they are not already doing so;
• If the local hotel industry conducts regular human resources training courses that are already provided for in their cost/investment planning, they can start including training with a focus on diversity as part of their regular program.
In terms of costs to ensure the program’s feasibility as a whole, although its “macro-reach” might suggest otherwise, the only pending issue is that of available technical assistance to respond to the needs in each sector. Brazil and the Southern Cone as a whole now have these resources and sufficient installed capacity to meet the demand in virtually all the areas. The costs can be absorbed by the same projects and activities that request the support.
The greatest challenges for this proposal are the long-term maintenance of the commitment to the inclusive development approach. For the project to be sustainable, it is crucial to invest in a change of culture and its ownership by the local community. For this to happen, it is necessary to maintain a permanent process of support, monitoring, and evaluation and for each sector to absorb the responsibilities and costs inherent to this investment.
The Consortiums
To form the multi-sector and interdisciplinary consortiums that will manage the project in each destination where it is implemented, a partnership is crucial, involving national, state, and municipal governments and the private sector, like taxi cooperatives, restaurant and hotel chains and associations, marketplaces, the wharf and dock front itself, and the main sea cruise operators in the region, among others. These will be the initiative’s prime beneficiaries, since they will gain access to a growing market, previously untapped due to the lack of supply of adequate services. This market not only exists, but it is growing, although still dormant or stifled, waiting for the opportunity to expand exponentially.
Bilateral and multilateral agencies, NGOs, and representatives of civil society, organizations for the defense of citizens’ rights, and development support networks should also be incorporated as direct or indirect stakeholders and supporters of these consortiums.
In addition to the local consortiums, to supervise the activities by the Tourism for All Network, the creation of National Consortiums should also be considered by the respective countries involved in the project, in addition to a Regional/International Committee with an advisory, regulatory, and inspection role.
Reach and Impact
The activities will allow defining a baseline, permanently monitoring, evaluating, and measuring the impact and material results, both in the market’s trend and local socioeconomic and environmental development, through programs with the tourist industry and participating communities. Activities such as certification, development and/or implementation of technical standards, compliance with local legislation, and the creation of reference centers for inclusive development will be a permanent part and will serve to support the project’s actions.
The entire initiative will serve as a laboratory and support for the implementation, in the participating countries, of the International Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Rights and Dignity of Persons with Disabilities, signed by the United Nations General Assembly on December 13, 2006. The region is also celebrating the start of the Decade of the Americas for the Rights and Dignity of Persons with Disabilities (OAS, 2006-2016).
The Tourism for All initiative, with its innovative approach, has sparked great interest in various sectors and levels and is intended to expand its alliances and partnerships with such organizations as the following:
• World Tourism Organization (UNWTO);
• Tourism Ministries and Secretariats, tourist agencies, and tourist industry representative organizations in Brazil, Uruguay, and Argentina;
• Governments of the States and Municipalities interested in joining the Network;
• International and national NGOs from the social area, tour operators and tourist agencies working with adventure, social tourism, events, sustainability, and environmental issues;
• Tourism Schools and Academia;
• Development agencies like the Brazilian National Economic and Social Development Bank (BNDES), IDB, and World Bank;
• Mercosur, among others.
During the last World Tourism Forum - DestiNations 2006 in Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil (Nov. 29-Dec. 2, 2006), some of these alliances were formed, and others are now in progress.
Action Plan: Tourist Destinations for All Network
The first step will be to organize the selection of the first destinations to receive the project, conduct a survey of the accessibility situation in the port and other tourist areas and the types of services available and to propose short, medium, and long-term (and low, medium, and high-cost) measures to be considered by the local authorities. At the same time, the process will begin to ensure the accessibility of the infrastructure and services and identify and link the partners to form the local and national consortiums and Regional Committee.
We will thus begin to set up the Network and launch the idea, generating mobilization through direct contact and networking, allowing the linkage of partnerships between all the sectors mentioned above. During the negotiation phase to create this structure, surveys will be conducted on the current situation and action plans will be developed with different levels of complexity, time frames, and costs.
Based on the exploratory conversations already under way, the following cities, which are on the main cruise ship routes, are expected to be incorporated into the Network at this stage: Brazil (Salvador, Buzios, Rio de Janeiro, Angra dos Reis, Santos, and Florianopolis); Uruguay (Montevideo and Punta del Este); and Argentina (Buenos Aires, Puerto Madryn, and Ushuaia).
This initial stage is scheduled to last 18 to 24 months.
For more information, please contact:
Rosangela Berman Bieler, e-mail: RBBieler@aol.com or IIDIsab@aol.com
Responsible, Sustainable, and Inclusive Development
in Tourist Destinations
Introduction
This project was prepared by the Inter-American Institute on Disability and Inclusive Development and its partners in order to respond to a huge but unmet demand by tourists, especially from the United States, Europe, and Asia, who use sea cruises because of their supposed advantages in terms of accessibility.
We are referring mainly to retired and elderly individuals who enjoy the time, money, and desire to travel, but who have reduced mobility, generally due to physical, visual, and hearing limitations, among others. This population group has also increased its life expectancy, thus guaranteeing a growing market in the long term.
The project is based on respect for human diversity as a means to achieve economic and social development, mainly for previously excluded low-income local populations.
Vision
The project’s vision is to comprehensively apply the principles of sustainability and social inclusion to tourist destinations, aiming to promote infrastructural, socioeconomic, and cultural changes that improve quality of life and well-being for both visitors and local residents.
Overall Objective
The main objective is to create a network of tourist destinations based on integrated, comprehensive plans for environmental management, accessibility, and inclusive services for tourists with different levels of functional limitation, including elderly persons and persons with disabilities.
Specific Objectives
• Improve the services offered to tourists;
• Preserve the environment;
• Value local culture;
• Minimize discrimination, prejudice, and exclusion and promote social inclusion;
• Fight poverty and generate conditions for better income distribution;
• Sensitize the tourist industry, the population, and public administrators concerning such values as environmental sustainability, social inclusion, and responsible tourism;
• Raise the awareness of the population and public administrators concerning the social and economic benefits generated by practices ensuring environmental sustainability, inclusion, and responsible tourism;
Justification
American adults with disabilities or reduced mobility currently spend an average of 13.6 billion U.S. dollars a year on tourism. In 2002, these individuals made 32 million trips and spent 4.2 billion dollars on hotels, 3.3 billion on airline tickets, 2.7 billion on food and beverages, and 3.4 billion on trade, transportation, and other activities. The most popular international destinations for this tourist segment are: (1) Canada; (2) Mexico; (3) Europe; and (4) the Caribbean, in that order.
Out of a total of 21 million persons, 69% had traveled at least once in the previous two years, including 3.9 million business trips, 20 million tourist trips, and 4.4 million business/tourist trips. In the previous 2 years, out of a total of 2 million adults with disabilities or reduced mobility, 7% had spent more than 1,600 dollars outside the continental United States. In addition, 20% had traveled at least 6 times every 2 years.
A study by the Open Doors Organization estimated that in the year 2003, persons with disabilities or reduced mobility spent 35 billion dollars in restaurants. According to the same study, more than 75% of these people eat out at restaurants at least once a week. The United States Department of Labor reported that a large and growing market of Americans with disabilities or reduced mobility have 175 billion dollars in purchasing/consumer power.
In the United Kingdom, the Employers’ Forum on Disability estimated 10 million adults with disabilities or reduced mobility in the UK, with an annual purchasing power of 80 billion pounds sterling. The Canadian Conference Board reported that in 2001, the combined annual disposable income of economically active Canadians with disabilities or reduced mobility was 25 billion Canadian dollars.
The expected trend is for these figures to multiply as a function of the currently repressed demand if destinations begin to offer accessible and inclusive environments for all (unlike the currently inaccessible conditions in port destinations). We view this fact as a major opportunity to foster international and domestic tourism in the countries of South America, while generating possibilities for citizens’ education, poverty reduction, and local socioeconomic development.
In the case of Uruguay and Argentina, we have followed the development of local initiatives for the promotion of Tourism for All, especially considering the great potential for the development of social tourism in the Southern Cone. Further initiatives in this direction would be extremely useful and would encourage thousands of new visitors.
In the port of Rio de Janeiro alone, some 30 thousand potential visitors a year fail to come ashore due to lack of access. If we invest in the accessibility of ports, marketplaces, cultural centers, and transportation, hotel, and restaurant infrastructure, we are certain to attract the cruise industry, which currently fails to offer options for tourists with reduced mobility. The latter would then come ashore at the cruise destination cities and leave foreign exchange in the country.
Project Scope
The project’s central strategy is to tap a large but unexplored tourist market and make communities more socially and ecologically responsible, more economically balanced, and more inclusive for all – within a sustainable development model.
The proposal is to identify areas with a strong tourist appeal in key ports to be selected on the coast of the Southern Cone of Latin America, among those receiving domestic and international cruise ships. The idea is thus to survey the existing resources and opportunities, considering each port’s natural calling, and to seek support for installing an inclusive approach to what is already being done. The scope of activity includes public policies, services, and works and activities by private enterprise and the Third Sector and International Cooperation.
Different experimental modules are also planned according to each port’s own characteristics, functioning as “laboratories” for improving the approaches and capacities that can be multiplied elsewhere in the Southern Cone.
Key work areas
The project aims to create a pilot network of tourist destinations, establishing management plans involving the entire community, especially focused on tackling some specific points:
1) Access to infrastructure, applying basic standards of accessibility and universal design to the built-up environments and spaces, including ports, public marketplaces, tourist establishments, transportation, different historical-cultural and natural attractions, etc.; communications and information; and services provided to the tourist industry.
2) Tourism for All, training human resources and providing adequate equipment and technology in the search for solutions to allow access and full participation by tourists with different levels of functional capacity, including the elderly and persons with disabilities.
3) Environmental Management, principally tackling the solid waste problem through awareness-raising and environmental education programs for residents, business owners, public administrators, and tourists; and handling and final disposal of waste, training the existing communities of solid waste recyclers and training new persons to be integrated into a value chain associated with the use of solid waste as raw material for manufacturing and marketing articles targeting the tourist market.
4) Changes in attitudes and culture, based on the principles of an inclusive society, through educational and training programs for youth as agents in the struggle against violence and for health promotion and social inclusion.
Since each destination has its own special calling and interests, any area or project attuned to the inclusive and sustainable development approach and proposal can join at any time. Activities like fair trade, micro-credit, and a focus on diversity are both expected and welcome.
Since one of the project’s main thrusts is the fight against poverty and inequality, and in keeping with the Millennium Development Goals, the proposal provides for the implementation of social and socioeconomic development programs with underprivileged local populations through partnerships with NGOs, United Nations agencies (like the UNWTO, UNDP, UNICEF, UNESCO, ILO, and FAO), social entrepreneurship networks like Ashoka and Avina, and international cooperation in general.
Destinations to be selected
The Tourism for All Network will consist of key destinations in different countries, seeking to identify common criteria, guidelines, and quality standards that can serve as a future overall application across the local cultural specificities.
The project’s key thrust will be the transformation of international destinations in the South American sea cruise route. This strategy guarantees not only generating an automatic demand, with the resulting possibility of measurements for corrections and surveying market statistics, but also the monitoring and evaluation of the project’s results, considering that persons with disabilities and the elderly represent one of the main segments served by the cruise industry.
Financing and Sustainability
Since the initiative proposes to work with existing structures and programs, it avoids duplicating or creating special or limited sub-projects or even generating unnecessary costs. The idea is that partners joining the Network will commit themselves to an inclusive approach to be adopted within their range of activity, using their own resources or raising funds to meet needs in the their specific area. For example:
• If a city is doing public construction work in its urban infrastructure, it will incorporate elements of accessibility and universal design into the project, using its available budget resources. There are now data demonstrating that building accessible spaces does not add significant construction costs (maximum of 1%);
• If an NGO is working with children and adolescents in projects related to education for citizenship, with women in income generation projects, or others, these projects already have dedicated financing and will only need to adopt inclusive approaches and if possible those also focused on the tourist market, if they are not already doing so;
• If the local hotel industry conducts regular human resources training courses that are already provided for in their cost/investment planning, they can start including training with a focus on diversity as part of their regular program.
In terms of costs to ensure the program’s feasibility as a whole, although its “macro-reach” might suggest otherwise, the only pending issue is that of available technical assistance to respond to the needs in each sector. Brazil and the Southern Cone as a whole now have these resources and sufficient installed capacity to meet the demand in virtually all the areas. The costs can be absorbed by the same projects and activities that request the support.
The greatest challenges for this proposal are the long-term maintenance of the commitment to the inclusive development approach. For the project to be sustainable, it is crucial to invest in a change of culture and its ownership by the local community. For this to happen, it is necessary to maintain a permanent process of support, monitoring, and evaluation and for each sector to absorb the responsibilities and costs inherent to this investment.
The Consortiums
To form the multi-sector and interdisciplinary consortiums that will manage the project in each destination where it is implemented, a partnership is crucial, involving national, state, and municipal governments and the private sector, like taxi cooperatives, restaurant and hotel chains and associations, marketplaces, the wharf and dock front itself, and the main sea cruise operators in the region, among others. These will be the initiative’s prime beneficiaries, since they will gain access to a growing market, previously untapped due to the lack of supply of adequate services. This market not only exists, but it is growing, although still dormant or stifled, waiting for the opportunity to expand exponentially.
Bilateral and multilateral agencies, NGOs, and representatives of civil society, organizations for the defense of citizens’ rights, and development support networks should also be incorporated as direct or indirect stakeholders and supporters of these consortiums.
In addition to the local consortiums, to supervise the activities by the Tourism for All Network, the creation of National Consortiums should also be considered by the respective countries involved in the project, in addition to a Regional/International Committee with an advisory, regulatory, and inspection role.
Reach and Impact
The activities will allow defining a baseline, permanently monitoring, evaluating, and measuring the impact and material results, both in the market’s trend and local socioeconomic and environmental development, through programs with the tourist industry and participating communities. Activities such as certification, development and/or implementation of technical standards, compliance with local legislation, and the creation of reference centers for inclusive development will be a permanent part and will serve to support the project’s actions.
The entire initiative will serve as a laboratory and support for the implementation, in the participating countries, of the International Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Rights and Dignity of Persons with Disabilities, signed by the United Nations General Assembly on December 13, 2006. The region is also celebrating the start of the Decade of the Americas for the Rights and Dignity of Persons with Disabilities (OAS, 2006-2016).
The Tourism for All initiative, with its innovative approach, has sparked great interest in various sectors and levels and is intended to expand its alliances and partnerships with such organizations as the following:
• World Tourism Organization (UNWTO);
• Tourism Ministries and Secretariats, tourist agencies, and tourist industry representative organizations in Brazil, Uruguay, and Argentina;
• Governments of the States and Municipalities interested in joining the Network;
• International and national NGOs from the social area, tour operators and tourist agencies working with adventure, social tourism, events, sustainability, and environmental issues;
• Tourism Schools and Academia;
• Development agencies like the Brazilian National Economic and Social Development Bank (BNDES), IDB, and World Bank;
• Mercosur, among others.
During the last World Tourism Forum - DestiNations 2006 in Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil (Nov. 29-Dec. 2, 2006), some of these alliances were formed, and others are now in progress.
Action Plan: Tourist Destinations for All Network
The first step will be to organize the selection of the first destinations to receive the project, conduct a survey of the accessibility situation in the port and other tourist areas and the types of services available and to propose short, medium, and long-term (and low, medium, and high-cost) measures to be considered by the local authorities. At the same time, the process will begin to ensure the accessibility of the infrastructure and services and identify and link the partners to form the local and national consortiums and Regional Committee.
We will thus begin to set up the Network and launch the idea, generating mobilization through direct contact and networking, allowing the linkage of partnerships between all the sectors mentioned above. During the negotiation phase to create this structure, surveys will be conducted on the current situation and action plans will be developed with different levels of complexity, time frames, and costs.
Based on the exploratory conversations already under way, the following cities, which are on the main cruise ship routes, are expected to be incorporated into the Network at this stage: Brazil (Salvador, Buzios, Rio de Janeiro, Angra dos Reis, Santos, and Florianopolis); Uruguay (Montevideo and Punta del Este); and Argentina (Buenos Aires, Puerto Madryn, and Ushuaia).
This initial stage is scheduled to last 18 to 24 months.
For more information, please contact:
Rosangela Berman Bieler, e-mail: RBBieler@aol.com or IIDIsab@aol.com
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