The forum will be held in Palma on 28 October and can be followed both in person and online.
As part of the Accessible Tourism Plan being developed by the Consell de Mallorca through the Mallorca Tourism Foundation, the International Forum on Accessible Tourism will be held on 28 October, with the participation of leading representatives from the tourism value chain and the field of disability.
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The president of the Consell de Mallorca, Catalina Cladera, will be in charge of opening the forum. The councillor for Transition, Tourism and Sports, Andreu Serra, will close the forum together with Alessandro Marinelli, president of Predif Illes Balears. Precisely this entity representing people with physical and organic disabilities is co-organising the event with the FMT.
The Forum will be held in the building of the Territorial Delegation of the Balearic Islands of ONCE and will be broadcast online. It will be available in Spanish and English, with simultaneous translation. All the information on the forum programme can be found at https://www.foroturismoaccesible.es/. To register, interested parties should do so via the following link: https://bit.ly/3TcsgOL.
The event will raise and develop issues related to the accessibility chain in tourism, including talks by renowned speakers from the tourism industry, transport and social entities who will lead a full programme of meetings and debates.
Programme
The event will begin with a round table on Transport: a vision of accessibility applied to travel, with the participation of the general director of accessibility of Palma City Council, Antoni Martín, who will also be the moderator; the head of the operations department of the Consorci de Transports de Mallorca (CTM), Jordi Sansó; the head of the Airport Services Management Department of AENA, Carlos del Río; and the manager of the Empresa Municipal de Transportes de Palma, Mateu Marcos.
This will be followed by a debate on the subject of travel agencies: where we come from, where we are and where we are going in terms of accessible tourism. The debate will be moderated by the director of Territorio Viajero and RNE collaborator, Paco Huertas. Also taking part will be Susanna Sciacovelli, head of communications, international relations and CSR at Grupo Viajes El Corte Inglés; Irina Martínez, product manager at Travel XPerience; and Joanna Gruau, project manager at Wheel the world.
The next topic to be discussed will be Accommodation and its involvement in social sustainability. From individual hotels to large chains. This round table will be moderated by the director of the Balearic School of Tourism, María José Moreno. Also taking part will be the vice-president of the FEHM, María José Aguiló; the technical director of InOut Hotel BCN, Izaskun Quilez; and the director of Sales & Marketing Marriot, Alberto Izquierdo.
The forum will then focus on Best Practices in accessible tourism in the hotel sector and how to be a pioneering chain for inclusion, through the intervention of Magnus Berglund, tourism accessibility consultant in the Swedish market, former director of accessibility at Scandic Hotels and member of ENAT.
Destinations and their management: the management of the accessibility axis from the point of view of smart tourism will be the next topic to be the focus of a debate moderated by the Director General of Tourism of Palma City Council, Maribel González. The director of marketing at Visit Valencia, José Manuel Camarero, and the head of DTI strategy and management bodies at Inteligencia Turística, Natalia Andreu, will also take part.
The representative of the accessible tourism group in ISTO and CEO of Mountains4all, Catherine R. Cosby, will then give a presentation on ISTO: World Social Tourism Organisation and its contribution to the development of the sector.
The penultimate round table will focus on Information and technology for the development of accessible tourism. It will be moderated by the coordinator of services at the ASPAS Foundation, María Magdalena Vanrell. The CSO of Navilens, Raúl Moreno; the director of PuntoDis Accessibility Solutions, Jon Imanol Ibarra; and the technical director of universal accessibility, inclusive tourism and culture at PREDIF – TUR4all, Miguel Carrasco, will also take part.
And the last round table will deal with The user experience with accessibility needs in Mallorca: standardisation and visualisation through new ways of communicating. Moderated by Paralympic champion Xavier Torres. Also participating will be influencers Alan ‘el Ruedas’, Marta ‘Stuntman’ Bustos, Cristina Reyes, and Anabel Domínguez.
The demand for accessibility
The market segment that demands an accessible destination has a very specific profile, sharing some characteristics such as having a higher spending capacity than the average (approximately 28% more). Ninety-six per cent of travellers are accompanied and normally travel in groups; and they are an excellent market for the depersonalisation of the destination as there is demand for trips at all times of the year, to highlight some characteristics.
It is also worth noting that the volume of tourists looking for an accessible destination is increasing. This is a growing market as, in Europe, 1 in 5 citizens are over 60 years old, with increasing needs for support in their lives. Germany, France, UK, Italy and Spain are the countries with the largest population with special needs in the EU, coinciding precisely with Mallorca’s main tourist source markets.
The plan completes a series of actions to improve information about the island, including the development of a tourist website with advances in accessibility. It also includes an extensive programme of promotional activities such as familiarisation trips to showcase the island’s progress in terms of inclusion, specific promotional campaigns in collaboration with PREDIF (Plataforma Representative Estatal de Personas con Discapacidad Física) and participation in tourism and disability sector-specific trade fairs, among others.