{"id":1966,"date":"2016-07-05T08:00:31","date_gmt":"2016-07-05T15:00:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/coyotecommunications.com\/coyoteblog\/?p=1966"},"modified":"2016-07-05T07:54:35","modified_gmt":"2016-07-05T14:54:35","slug":"worldtourismday2016","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/coyotecommunications.com\/coyoteblog\/2016\/07\/worldtourismday2016\/","title":{"rendered":"Universal accessibility in tourism! World Tourism Day theme 2016"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"tourismforall\"<\/a>World Tourism Day is September 27 each year, as designated by the United Nations General Assembly, and is meant to foster awareness among the international community of the importance of tourism and its social, cultural, political and economic value. The celebration also seeks to highlight tourism’s potential to contribute to reaching the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), addressing some of the most pressing challenges society is faced with today. The lead agency for the day is the UN World Tourism Organization<\/a>, and the theme of this year\u2019s World Tourism Day is “Promoting Universal Accessibility.”<\/a><\/p>\n

Accessible Tourism for all is about the creation of environments that can cater for the needs of all of us, whether <\/em> whether we are traveling or staying at home. May that be due to a disability, even temporary, families with small children, or the ageing population, at some point in our lives, sooner or later, we all benefit of universal accessibility in tourism.<\/em><\/p>\n

Which is why<\/em>\u00a0we want to call upon the right for all of the world\u2019s citizens to experience the incredible diversity of our planet and the beauty of the world we live in.\u00a0 <\/em><\/p>\n

LOVE the theme. The organizers are offering a free publication, UNWTO Recommendations on Accessible Information in Tourism (2016)<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0, in English and Spanish. I love this from the introduction of that publication<\/strong>:<\/p>\n

Tourist information needs to be designed based on the principles of Universal Design in order to maximise its<\/em>\u00a0ease of use by as many people as possible and in varied environmental conditions and situations. This applies equally to print media, graphics and<\/em>\u00a0 digital communication formats. No one should be excluded from participating in tourism activities because of poorly designed information tools and systems, as this also implies being excluded from the opportunity of living an independent life.<\/em><\/p>\n

I am SO pleased to see this emphasis from a United Nations agency! Accessible design for web sites and smart phone apps is a very, very big deal with me – and if you need help with accessible design, there’s no better place to look than the Austin, Texas-based nonprofit Knowbility<\/a>!<\/p>\n

The campaign also has\u00a0UNWTO Recommendations on Accessible Tourism for All (2013)<\/a><\/strong>, to advise on ativities\u00a0for ensuring that people with disabilities have access to the physical environment, the transportation system, information and communications channels, as well as to a wide range of public facilities and services. There are lots more free UNWTO publications<\/a>\u00a0regarding accessibility in tourism, as well as logos in English, Spanish, French and Russian<\/a> in association with this year’s theme,<\/p>\n

If you are having an event in association with this theme on World Tourism Day, you can submit it via the web site<\/a> and it will appear on the official map<\/a>.<\/p>\n

And in case you are wondering why I care so much about this particular day: I’m an avid traveler. I want to use my privilege to see different parts of the world, whether that’s something around the globe from me or in the next county. Travel gives me hope in humanity, because of the incredible kindness I experience. Travel gives me a sense of wonder, because of the incredible natural beauty and human-made marvels I see. Travel gives me a sense of brotherhood with all humans, because of the various representations of history I encounter. I want all people to get to experience this, particularly women<\/a>. And the economic benefits to local communities regarding tourism\u00a0are real and something I very much want to support.<\/p>\n

Also see Adventure tourism as a tool for economic & community development<\/a>\u00a0by me! This is a resource for those that like to explore developing countries \/ low infrastructure environments, as well as offering more about why I make travel a priority in my life.<\/p>\n

(my own blog)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

World Tourism Day is September 27 each year, as designated by the United Nations General Assembly, and is meant to foster awareness among the international community of the importance of tourism and its social, cultural, political and economic value. The celebration also seeks to highlight tourism’s potential to contribute to reaching the Sustainable Development Goals […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[19],"tags":[1300,26,642,147,706,707,1359,1358,490,651,496,1356,1360,1357],"class_list":["post-1966","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-supporting-people-a-community-a-cause","tag-access","tag-accessibility","tag-accessible","tag-design","tag-disabilities","tag-disabled","tag-mental","tag-physical","tag-tourism","tag-tourists","tag-travel","tag-travel4good","tag-universal","tag-unwto"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3fFJB-vI","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/coyotecommunications.com\/coyoteblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1966","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/coyotecommunications.com\/coyoteblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/coyotecommunications.com\/coyoteblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coyotecommunications.com\/coyoteblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coyotecommunications.com\/coyoteblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1966"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/coyotecommunications.com\/coyoteblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1966\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1970,"href":"https:\/\/coyotecommunications.com\/coyoteblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1966\/revisions\/1970"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/coyotecommunications.com\/coyoteblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1966"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coyotecommunications.com\/coyoteblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1966"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coyotecommunications.com\/coyoteblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1966"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}