Interview to Lilian Müller about Tourism for All
"There is still a long way to go before Europe can be regarded as a destination for all" - "It is only when the destination can offer full accessibility along the whole service chain they can start to market themselves and compete as a destination for all".
Lilian Müller is currently President of ENAT and Managing Director of Tourism for All Sweden. She has worked in the field of accessible tourism since 1995, and was one of the initiators behind Tourism for All in Sweden, where she has built up services like the Swedish accessibility database EQUALITY, accessibility counselling for the tourism sector, produced training material and held training courses for staff in tourism companies, and to train accessibility auditors.
Coming up below there is an interview she granted the Foundation, where we talk to her about Tourism for All.
What is Design for All?
Design for all is the philosophy and the vision of a society open and functioning for everyone, based on the fact that all human beings are diverse. It’s an important challenge for planners, architects and designers to achieve this goal, which also will create a win-win situation for society, citizens and enterprises. A product or service designed for all is easy to understand and to use; usable despite of any limitations of the individual abilities and provides the necessary prerequisites for everyone to participate in society on equal terms.
When we speak of Tourism for All, we talk about tourism for people with functional diversity?
Tourism for All is a concept closely related to the Design for All-philosophy. Tourism for All is not about to create special solutions and products only designed for people with certain disabilities, but to ensure that tourism products, services and environments are created and designed to fit the widest possible number of customers, by respecting that every customer is unique. Any tourism activity or business should of course apply this concept ‘automatically’ as business in general is about to reach the optimal number of customers; and tourism business specifically base their success largely on their abilities to reach the customers’ individual needs. But so far, it’s a matter of raising awareness and knowledge about Tourism for All and Design for All as success factors and concepts for the development of the businesses.
Which are some of the projects or lines of work of ENAT?
In ENAT, we work on many levels to support the development of Tourism for All in Europe and worldwide. Since the association was founded in 1996, we gather members from all continents, including private and public organizations, enterprises and individuals. As a network of tourism providers and experts, one of our most important aims is to build partnerships, learn from each other and create new solutions. We regard tourism accessible for all as a question of quality and sustainability. Besides, with a rapid growing share of older people in the population, no business can, in the long run, afford to ignore the fact that this also raises the demands on products and services designed for all. ENAT as such are involved as partner and/or supporter of many projects around Europe such as CETA, addressed to tourism SME’s around Europe and to create useful tools for them to develop their business according to the Tourism for All concept; and ETCAATS, a project where we both are developing an online training course in Tourism for All for the tourism sector, and to develop a ‘road map’ for an EU certification system in the area of accessible tourism vocational training.
How would you describe the situation of Tourism for All in Europe, what have we achieved and, above all, which are the future challenges?
The situation of Tourism for All in Europe is moving forward, although we might think that the development takes too much time. Anyhow, we can now identify a number of good examples around Europe that are important for the future development. Tourism for All is coming more and more into the minds of people in the tourism industry, as a concept that both has a large potential market that can lead to a raised number of customers, among many of them are willing to spend more money than the average tourist, travel in low seasons and are more loyal to destinations than the average tourist. But even if we can notice many positive signs at the moment, there is still a long way to go before Europe can be regarded as a destination for all. Differences in laws and standards between the countries, an uneven level of knowledge among tourism entrepreneurs, planners, decision-makers etc. and a big lack of reliable information are some of the main obstacles. Another problem is the lack of accessibility in the whole tourism service chain.
What is the ‘Tourism chain’?
As other tourists, people with a higher level of access needs, want to spend a holiday rich in activities and experiences. Therefore, it is not enough to provide only accommodation designed for all – the destination must be able to offer catering, culture activities, shopping, public transports, sightseeing, bank services, health care etc. usable for everyone.
The weakest link of the tourism chain when it comes to accessibility is the transportation. Recently we were contacted by a person using wheelchair who had tried to use Swedish trains. He looked at the website and booked a seat for wheelchair-users. He was very surprised when he found out that this seat did not include the possibility to enter the train at the station. Since long time, the modern Swedish train has no lifts in function. It has been replaced by mobile lifts but only at the main stations, in this case Stockholm and Malmö, which means that a person in need of the lift cannot enter the train at any other stations along the way. Some information was given about this on the website, but only in Swedish. And the possibility to book a seat for wheelchair user without the possibility to enter the train was still there.
This shows the big need of a common standard, where Design for All should be regarded as the normal basic standard, and how important it is from the tourism point of view to provide accessibility in the whole service chain. In the example above it was not only the Swedish train company loosing a customer, but also a hotel, restaurants etc. at the chosen destination. It is only when the destination can offer full accessibility along the whole service chain they can start to market themselves and compete as a Destination for All!
Which are the basic elements that a town or city must have in order to become a tourist destination for All? Can you highlight a good example to follow (good practice) and one example or aspect that calls for improvement?
If I shall mention one example of how a destination for all can be developed, I would like to mention the town of Askersund and the passenger boat Wetterwik. The small shipping company started to turn the passenger boat into a boat for all – 20.000 Euros were invested, and successfully the owners reached paid off already in the first season. The market was bigger than expected, and this success started a local chain-reaction. The municipality changed their planning philosophy, now with the main aim to build a town for all. The shipping company very soon got dependent other tourism services ability to offer accommodation for all, catering for all etc., and one by one is now realizing how the Design for All concept can strengthen the local businesses and provide a town better for all citizens to live in. Askersund was also the first town in Sweden to obtain the ‘Flag of towns and cities for all’.
But tourism is an international, border-crossing activity; and one of the most important aspects for improvement is to boost the knowledge about the concept and to improve the tourism information. Along with the development that more and more people realizes the strength of the Tourism for All-concept; it’s also getting more and more common to find unreliable and poor information about accessibility in tourism venues. One of the criteria that leads many people to be loyal to a certain destination is that the destination really can offer what they promise, and that the customer gets the product and service they expected. Therefore it is of utmost importance to improve the knowledge among tourism companies and staff about Tourism for All in practice.
Exchange of experiences and good practice can contribute to raise awareness and speed up the development of Tourism for All. There is a clear trend of a growing demand of Tourism for All around the world, and in this development there is space for frontrunners showing the way for tourism with a higher level of quality and sustainability, offering services and products that are designed for all.
