Inaugural Access Tourism Conference

Auckland, October 4, 2010.
Sandra Rhodda,
Senior Research Officer
New Zealand Tourism Research Institute
Auckland University of Technology.

Access Tourism is tourism, travel, and hospitality for the disabled, seniors, and Baby Boomers who will experience increasing disability as they age. Access Tourism is ignored in New Zealand by the government and the tourism industry. Instead, New Zealand tourism focuses on appealing to the young, the fit, and the adrenalin driven. For example, in the stunning Tourism New Zealand 100% Pure Youngest Country on Earth video, in the Tourism New Zealand image library and on the website, and in most New Zealand tourism brochures and other publicity, there are very few people who look over the age of 45 years, and people with disabilities are not shown at all. This is in spite of the fact that Ministry of Tourism data shows that already almost half of domestic and general international tourists and over 70% of cruise passengers to New Zealand are 45 years old or older, and that the percentage of older tourists has been increasing over the last few years. And it is in spite of the fact that statistics show that disability increases with age. We should be gearing up to be accessible to the older and less able visitor, but we are not, and Access Tourism is ignored.  This conference intends to begin a discussion on these issues in the New Zealand context.

Some other facts that make it imperative that New Zealand develop Access Tourism include:

 

• Estimates are that about 10% of the world’s population has a disability, while the 2006 census shows that about 17% of New Zealanders do so;
• The disabled already comprise the world’s largest minority group (750 million to 1 billion people worldwide) and this group is going to increase in size as the large Baby Boomer cohort (those born between 1946-1965) ages, because disability increases with age;
• The ageing of the population is happening both in developed nations (our traditional markets) and in developing nations (currently receiving a greater focus from Tourism New Zealand);
• Baby Boomers will retire in numbers starting in 2011 and will swell the Silver and disabled markets;
• Silvers and people with disabilities are interested in travel, Baby Boomers are currently the highest income earners, and figures from research in other countries show that currently, the disabled have money to spend on and do spend discretionary products;
• People with disabilities tend to travel with more companions;
• The elderly will travel with their own ageing children, or with their grandchildren because Mum and Dad are working to pay off the mortgage
• Baby Boomers will have money to spend when they retire and are prepared to spend that money (unlike their parents).  They are beginning to inherit from their parents (the largest inter-generational transfer of assets in history), but will not in turn leave as many assets to their children (witness re-mortgaging of property).
• Baby Boomers have always looked upon tourism, travel, and hospitality as right and not as a privelage or “once-in-a-lifetime” thing to do as their parents did.
• They are internet savvy, will demand appropriate services, and will tell the world when they don’t get them;
• Wellness, Spa, and Medical Tourism are on the rise, fuelled by the patronage of ageing Baby Boomers. It is after all the Boomers who wrote such songs as “Forever Young”, “Born to be Wild”, and “Girls just want to have fun”!

In spite of these trends, the current Access Tourism offer in New Zealand is very sparse and there is apparently no conception of the current and future economic value of Access Tourism. Nor does there seem to be any plan to study, develop, and cater for this market. Unlike New Zealand, our main rivals have for a number of years been catering for or are planning to cater for the Silver and Access Tourism markets. Countries such as Australia, Canada, the U.S.A., Great Britain, India, and other Asian and European countries have or are planning to have an improved Access Tourism offer and information available in print or web form specifically targeting Silvers and the disabled. Additionally, such international bodies as the WTO, UN, APEC, the EU and others have increased their focus on Silver tourism and Access Tourism. At least seventeen major national and international conferences about these markets have occurred since 2001 (and more are planned), but New Zealand has not sent a representative to a single one. Numerous regional Silver and Access Tourism conferences have also been held (17 in Europe in 2009 alone).

Thus NZ is lagging behind. We ignore Silver tourism and what we currently offer in the way of Access Tourism is for the most part unacceptable. For example, a study of wheelchair access at 40% of tourism operations on the West Coast of the South Island showed that about 85% of operators think a person in a wheelchair can get in to their business, when in fact only one third are accessible in this way. This is an especial problem when accommodations are booked by wheelchair users who then turn up to find the accommodation inaccessible. In addition, public services that a tourist might be expected to use (such as public toilets, telephones, and Laundromats) were found to have poor or no accessibility. It is surprising that more than half of the Information Providers assessed were impossibly difficult to access and use, although all stated they were accessible. It is particularly surprising because some were (and are) run by the Department of Conservation, a government department supposed to adhere to guidelines on access.

The West Coast study is probably indicative of conditions in the rest of New Zealand. Anecdotal information shows that tourism businesses elsewhere in the nation also often have no real conception of what true access means, and can purchase from any book store and display on their premises or on their website the international symbol for access without having a registered assessor vet their product. Reports concerning good, bad, or absent access to tourism and travel products are increasingly posted by customers on dedicated Access Tourism web/blog sites where they create a reputation for the country or area concerned. These websites are proliferating, and the largest have daily updates of information about Access Tourism from around the world.  These articles include some which report negative experiences of travellers in New Zealand.

New Zealand has a lot of work to do to catch up to its rivals in the area of Access Tourism. We do not know how many visitors in or to New Zealand have a disability, or how many would visit this country if the Access Tourism sector was developed. We do not know in any depth what the Access Tourism offer is currently like. Nor do we know anything about the experiences of customers with disabilities who use New Zealand Access Tourism products. We have no plans to educate operators about the coming wave of Silver and disabled tourists, nor about how to deliver good customer service to this market. There are no plans to ensure that operators who say they are accessible actually are, and no plans at the national or industry level to explore possible means of granting accreditation to tourism industry establishments that are accessible by the disabled.

So the Access Tourism New Zealand conference is a major step forward. The conference will look at various aspects of Access Tourism, including some of the following: the current situation in New Zealand and worldwide, website access and information best practice, government strategy, policy, and obligations, best practice in transport, accommodation, and attractions access, training for access in the tourism and hospitality sector, legal aspects, universal design, and quality rating for Access Tourism products in New Zealand. It will also include brainstorming sessions on strategies for advancing the development of Access Tourism in New Zealand and developing collaboration as a tool to advance that development. These topics are based on those most popularly picked from a list of possible topics in an online survey. The conference is being run by the New Zealand Tourism Research Institute at Auckland University of Technology on October 4th 2010, and will be a no frills sustainable event. A link to the registration page can be found on the Access Tourism New Zealand website.

Conference speakers include:

Diana Palmer, Information on Disability Education Awareness Services (IDEAS), NSW, Australia.
Diana has just returned from a Blakeney Millar Churchill Fellowship in North America, Europe, the UK, and parts of Asia, where she studied developments in Access Tourism  

Kathy Olsen, Director of Squiz NZ, an expert in web accessibility

Minnie Baragwanath, Auckland City Council.
Minnie will discuss Access developments in Auckland around RWC2011, including the creation of an accessible business toolkit as part of the business readiness programme
    
 Those registered to attend so far include representatives from industry training organisations, the NZ Automobile Association, local governments, non-governmental organisations, tourism operators, tourism travel agencies, tourism industry sector organisations, the Department of Conservation, regional tourism organisations, and academics.

For more information, contact sarhodda@aut.ac.nz

Published 25th Aug 2010

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