T4PROIN

T4proIN, the project aimed at making tourism more inclusive has among its strengths not to think of accessibility as something that only concerns people with disabilities: accessibility becomes in fact, for the project, a value for everyone. This concept stems from the awareness that each of us, at a given moment of our life, may need specific supports for certain needs: such as pink parking lots for pregnant women or glasses for short-sighted people; in short, needs do not derive from disability.

The real objective of the partnership (Spain, Italy, Bulgaria and Greece) is, therefore, to change the true paradigm of disability.

For these reasons, the partners of T4proIN (AiNP, CEIPES, NARHU, UoP and Digital Idea) have created a questionnaire to allow everyone to contribute to a great analysis of international needs: over 80 people from member countries answered the questions disseminated through the Google Forms platform; they were joined by 20 associations linked to disability and/or tourism.

It emerged that people with disabilities, especially physical ones, often do not travel due to difficulties encountered during previous experiences; the food menus have been found to be a frequent limitation for people with allergies as well as for those who have other needs that force them to follow a specific diet (eg celiacs). There is also a need to pay more attention to disabilities related to special communication needs such as those related to a learning disorder, an intellectual disability or blindness (which poses the need for written communications in Braille format which are often absent).

Other problems highlighted by the completed questionnaires are:

• The lack of certainty about the real accessibility of the structures
• Greater cost containment, unrelated to the customer’s degree of disability
• Greater training of operators in the sector

The needs analysis now concluded was, as is evident, very important to understand what to focus on in the training path that the Consortium will create for the accommodation facilities and their staff, so as to understand how to best teach how to meet the needs of customers.

To know more about the progress of the project, follow T4proIN on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter pages and its website.