Empowerment through advocacy

UNARGUABLY, THE THRUST to find common cause with non-disability groups in creating an accessible tourism environment for all is the most noteworthy feature of the first Asia Pacific Conference on Tourism for persons with disabilities held in Bali. ``Universal tourism'', or ``tourism for all'', was the plea issued to Governments, the voluntary sector and industry; urging them to take suitable steps to ensure that people, regardless of age, gender and abilities, have greater access to tourism facilities. This spirit is reflected in the Bali Declaration which emphasises respect for the equal rights not only of persons with disabilities, but also of elderly persons and families with children for access to tourism facilities and services with other consumers. According to the World Tourism Organisation, about 12 to 15 per cent of the potential travelling public, one in every seven travellers, has some form of temporary or permanent disability. Moreover, people are not only different from each other in the abilities they possess, but the level of functioning varies through different stages in each individual's life. There are, therefore, valid moral and material reasons to make the enterprise of tourism more inclusive.

That accessible tourism services for people with disabilities are almost non-existent is but a truism in a general scenario where guarantees to more basic requirements such as quality education, health care and rehabilitation services are highly inadequate. This larger reality is not, however, something that can easily be wished away when we begin thinking of expanding tourism for the disabled. This is because the increase in disposable incomes and the burgeoning of tourists in many countries today owes to the growth in employment and increase in lifespan. The corresponding share of the disabled in these respects must be by any standard considerably less and this directly relates to their general level of education and employment. Therefore, one cannot escape the question whether the creation of an accessible tourist environment for the disabled should take precedence over efforts to improve far more basic needs. One must also remember that barriers to physical access per se have been recognised as an area of concern only in the last decade or so, owing at least in part to the shift in thinking away from institutionalised care. But this has not concomittantly generated the requisite measure of sensitivity to the fact that the need for a barrier- free environment is more real than ever before.

There is no denying the importance of placing the issue on the public agenda of the region, both in view of the rights of relevant groups to accessible tourism and the palpable lack of demonstrable public recognition of this fact. All the same, we cannot lose sight of the fact that the endeavour to promote barrier-free tourism is but only a small part of a larger vision to create a barrier-free environment for the disabled. Only as part of this larger picture could tourism ever have meaning and relevance for them. The broader vision must encompass the entire range of human life and activity, since, at least in theory, it is generally recognised that people ought not to be denied access on grounds of disability. In such a scenario, prioritising the arenas to improve access will inevitably be contested and decisions will have to be left to democratic deliberation, with due regard for local requirements. Tourist resorts could very well be high among the access priorities in Australia; it may be public transport that should receive impetus, say, in India.

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Section  : Opinion
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