Sandra Wall-Reinius, Kristin Godtman Kling, D. Ioannides
{"title":"Access to Nature for Persons with Disabilities: Perspectives and Practices of Swedish Tourism Providers","authors":"Sandra Wall-Reinius, Kristin Godtman Kling, D. Ioannides","doi":"10.1080/21568316.2022.2160489","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Despite the growing popularity of outdoor recreation, nature is not equally accessible to everyone. In the case of persons with disabilities, access to nature remains a largely under-researched area, especially in terms of the role of private and public providers of products and facilities for a diverse range of visitors. This study investigates the challenges and opportunities for developing inclusive forms of accessible nature-based tourism in three different natural settings in Sweden. By focusing on the supply side of nature-based tourism, we examine views and practices in providing inclusive activities and environments. Despite growing stakeholder interest in accessible nature-based tourism, our findings reveal several challenges, including limited knowledge about the consumers, lack of financial resources and long-term planning, and the absence of a holistic accessibility perspective. We discuss these challenges and propose that they can be collectively met through increased stakeholder collaboration for creating accessible nature-based tourism.","PeriodicalId":47312,"journal":{"name":"Tourism Planning & Development","volume":"20 1","pages":"336 - 354"},"PeriodicalIF":2.1000,"publicationDate":"2022-12-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"2","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Tourism Planning & Development","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1080/21568316.2022.2160489","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"HOSPITALITY, LEISURE, SPORT & TOURISM","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 2
Abstract
ABSTRACT Despite the growing popularity of outdoor recreation, nature is not equally accessible to everyone. In the case of persons with disabilities, access to nature remains a largely under-researched area, especially in terms of the role of private and public providers of products and facilities for a diverse range of visitors. This study investigates the challenges and opportunities for developing inclusive forms of accessible nature-based tourism in three different natural settings in Sweden. By focusing on the supply side of nature-based tourism, we examine views and practices in providing inclusive activities and environments. Despite growing stakeholder interest in accessible nature-based tourism, our findings reveal several challenges, including limited knowledge about the consumers, lack of financial resources and long-term planning, and the absence of a holistic accessibility perspective. We discuss these challenges and propose that they can be collectively met through increased stakeholder collaboration for creating accessible nature-based tourism.