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ISSN: 2641-1768

Scholarly Journal of Psychology and Behavioral Sciences

Mini ReviewOpen Access

Tourism and Accessibility: An Integrative Review on Accessibility in Tourism Between the Years 2015 – 2020 Volume 5 - Issue 2

Ronaldo Martins Costa1 and Felipe Sávio Cardoso Teles Monteiro2*

  • ¹Student of the Tourism Course, at the Federal University of Maranhão-UFMA, Brazil
  • ²Labor Advisor, Teacher of the Bachelor of Tourism Course, at the Federal University of Maranhão, UFMA, Brazil

Received: April 22, 2021;   Published:April 29, 2021

Corresponding author:Felipe Sávio Cardoso Teles Monteiro, Labor Advisor, Teacher of the Bachelor of Tourism Course, at the Federal University of Maranhão-UFMA, Brazil

DOI: 10.32474/SJPBS.2021.05.000206

Abstract PDF

Abstract

Tourism activity in recent years has undergone countless transformations, these being of a social, cultural and economic nature, making more and more people able to practice tourism. This factor contributed for the tourist trade to expand, causing several segments to appear within the same sector to meet the varied demands of society. This society is also composed of people with disabilities, whether physical, intellectual or sensory, as defined by social and legal parameters. In this north, the tourist activity started to understand these people as individuals deserving to practice and enjoy the services, products, places, spaces and conditions that correspond to the sector. To this end, discussions on accessibility and social inclusion within tourism have become constant guidelines when thinking about offering a quality service that can meet and be accessible to everyone. In this way, the present work aims to carry out a systematic review, literature review on works already published that contemplate the same theme that they bring from a historical show of the accessibility and inclusion of people with disabilities within tourism, up to what has already been aiming to make them feel inserted in this environment, as well as to understand what actually happens in practice when investigating the real practices, adaptations and conditions carried out to assist these people with a disability. Whereby means of a systematization of the chosen works and the theoretical-conceptual framework [1-4]. It is possible to arrive at results that show the reality of the difficulties, barriers that limit the fact that the tourist activity occurs in a way accessible to all who want to enjoy it.

Keywords: Inclusive Tourism; Accessibility; Social inclusion; Disabled people.

Introduction

The tourist activity, over the years has undergone numerous changes and consequently has generated new social, cultural and economic transformations, not only within its sector, but also in the whole of society in order to contribute to its development and growth. Contemporary tourism is understood as a socio-spatial, historical, and cultural phenomenon where the human being is constantly the center of studies that place him as a constant producer of demands in which the tourist activity is sustained when trying to supply them. From this perspective, tourism has gradually moved the economic sector from many spaces in which it is inserted, thus driving changes in different realities. It is worth mentioning that, in addition to this more technical view on the positive aspects of the activity, as it has provided the most diverse audiences, some opportunities to equally enjoy the services, places, spaces that comprise the tourist activity [5]. As a result, the tourist activity started to be divided into several segments so as to be able to meet all the demands that the human being may come to possess. This so-called market segmentation has enabled tourism to develop under the most diverse realities, conditions, particularities, places, spaces, thus, there is Cultural Tourism, Inclusive Tourism, Adventure Tourism, Mass Tourism, Tourism of Business, among others. However, this study is based on the themes of accessibility and social inclusion instilled within the Inclusive Tourism market segment, which in turn seeks to understand and analyze whether within the tourist activity the individual with a disability enjoys these conditions that you are assured. Conditioning also a look at the whole, that is, services, locations, conditions, professionals who seek to develop tourism accessible to all. Since inclusion and accessibility has become an increasingly constant issue within tourism in recent years, due to the countless social, cultural and historical processes that are experienced. Above all, that more and more people with disabilities have sought to enjoy and practice tourism [6]. Thus, studies on this theme perceived an increasing demand to make tourism a practice accessible to all, under the most diverse conditions, thus making it mainly accessible to people who have some physical, sensory or intellectual disability.

Methodology

Thus, to obtain the results, 20 articles can be found as a final sample in the SCIELO and CAPES databases. Having as one of the analysis criteria for the choice of works, keywords related to the research theme, such as “Accessibility”, “Social inclusion”, “People with disabilities”, “Inclusive Tourism” and etc.

Results and Discussion

As it is a table with a large number (20) of author contributions, to better understand and analyze the chosen works, it was decided to bring in a category the “Main Outcome” as a way of understanding what the work brought as contribution within the researched area [7-12]. It was also decided to place a category with the “Type of Study” to better understand the way in which a given research took place within the proposed theme, as an example of this [5], whether it took place in qualitative or quantitative format, which directly affects in its relevance to the research field. Finally, the “Magazine and Year of Publication” category comes to provide support and consistency through the position of importance of each magazine that published a particular research, thus adding it, a significant weight and veracity to the development of this research. This separation allowed a broader vision in the contribution that each research brought in relation to its place of speech, when working with tourism and its market segmentation, being this, the practice of accessible tourism, or even bringing in its core the themes of social inclusion, accessibility and how these are arranged within society and its spaces, thus giving a clearer view on how they are placed in theory (laws, norms, criteria, means of incentive) and in practice ( adaptation of tourist places, training and qualification of people). Another pertinent observation is the importance with which the topic has been dealt with in the last 05 (five) years, as the publication of related articles on accessible tourism has been constant [13-17], not only those that are under analysis here, and these have an existing standard of analysis, which is based on mostly qualitative, descriptive-exploratory research and literature review, thus showing a concern about what is within the studied area between discoveries and achievements, as well as currently the question in practice [1,4,11]. Therefore, in this context it was possible to understand the relevance with which the themes that encompass Accessible and inclusive Tourism in all its dimensions and perspectives have been dealt with through publications that show the practice and theory, the possibilities and obstacles, as well as what if there is infrastructure and resources currently available for this practice, how can we still go on to achieve an excellent service to be offered to people with a disability?

Final Considerations

Addressing the literature review in this research as a methodological and analytical tool made it possible to concatenate what has been idealized, discussed and put into practice with regard to the themes of social inclusion, accessibility within tourism, with regard to people with disabilities. disabilities and their needs to be integrated within the tourist activity in recent years, especially between the years 2015 and 2020. Initially, the study was guided by a presentation of how people with disabilities are seen and supported and by society, by virtue of its norms [18-21], laws, plans and projects, showing a dimension much larger than what was thought about the importance of debating the theme. With this, this review showed that people with disabilities, be it physical, sensory or intellectual, have achieved great achievements in relation to their insertion in the most diverse spaces of society, mainly within the tourist activity, highlighting the effort of elaboration and performance of managing bodies, such as the UN, OMT, EMBRATUR, Invir. Tur among others. With the main objective of enabling the disabled person to enjoy, reach, move autonomously and safely through these diverse spaces. In relation to inclusive tourism, as a demand identified by the activity sector, it was understood that any way or form of doing tourism should be accessible to everyone, thus breaking with conceptions that inclusive or accessible tourism tends to be totally different spaces from those that already exist, when in fact these spaces that already exist or are being created are enough, be adapted for this public to be able to move freely with the others, because they do not want to feel separated from the “nondisabled”, but included in the middle their.

Conclusion

Another pertinent position within this research is built based on the social reality that the world experiences, especially Brazil in relation to the Covid-19 virus, which brought a devastating scenario of deaths and fears to society, impacting several sectors within the most diverse spheres (social, cultural and economic), and mainly the tourist activity that is threatened in face of this pandemic. The research developed to understand how this happened, and how to solve this problem has been very difficult, especially the search for a vaccine that can contribute to the fight against Covid-19. Thus, there are researchers new spaces to research the impacts of the pandemic within the tourism sector and mainly to understand the social impacts that it has caused on people’s lives, especially those with a disability [22-24]. Finally, in view of all the assumptions presented in this work regarding the insertion of people with disabilities in the tourist environment, this leads us to have a critical and assiduous look with regard to the elaboration / development / creation or even adaptation of spaces already existing, whether for the purpose of tourist visitation or not, within the municipality of São Bernardo-MA, have accessible conditions for these individuals to feel inserted. Bringing through other research bases on what is done and ensured by law for the existence of accessible tourism for all and how this trajectory took place, so when considering the implementation of a tourist activity in São Bernardo, these conditions can make part of all stages of this process.

References

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