engleski

A Critical Analysis of the Possibilities to Include Persons with Disabilities in Tourism Activities in Croatia

The right of dignity and equality of all people in the world has been established in the UN Declaration of Human Rights (1948). But, since the 1980s it has begun to be pointed out that there are still some marginalized categories of population who are discriminated in their rights due to their physical or psychological limitations. One of the rights in which persons with disabilities (PwD) have been rejected was the right to travel. The potential of this specific segment of demand has been recognised in the tourism industry, as a new type of tourism, titled ‘accessible tourism’. This article explores the development of the accessible tourism (AT) in the European Union (EU), where PwD and elderly people are recognised as the leading tourism segments among other tourists with reduced mobility, health problems and other limitations (in hearing, seeing, speaking etc.) who are included in AT. Despite the generally positive attitudes in society about AT, it is not developing at the same rate in all EU Member States. To illustrate this statement, the case study of the youngest EU Member State, Croatia is applied. The main aim of this paper is to identify the most important barriers to the development of AT in Croatia. Furthermore, this paper aims to underline the importance of this, relatively new type of tourism in Croatia seeing that this particular segment of demand has been much more ignored, marginalized and insufficiently included in tourism activities compared to the most EU Member States. According to conducted primary research among residents with disabilities (RwD) in Croatia, there are physical and financial barriers as the main obstacles to the inclusion of local PwD in tourism trips in Croatia. Such negligence of tourism development for RwD appears as a problem in positioning Croatia at demanding international tourism market of AT that is well developed in some other countries of EU. The article concludes with an appeal to the tourism industry in Croatia to develop AT offer so it can be attractive for all tourists with special access needs.

persons with disabilities ; accessible tourism ; barriers to accessible tourism ; European Union ; Croatia

nije evidentirano