Day 3.3 The Role of NGOs in Accessible Tourism: APEC Tourism Accessibility Workshop Series 2021
hello my name is Ivor Ambrose I'm the managing director of ENAT, the European Network for Accessible Tourism and I'm here with Isabelle DuChamp from Kéroul we're very grateful for this opportunity to speak at the APEC workshop and we're going to talk about the role of NGOs, non-government organizations and working with National Tourism Organizations (NTOs) in the area of accessible tourism. So first of all we'll just introduce ourselves and i'll give the floor to Isabelle who is in Canada thank you Ivor it's a pleasure to be here today talking to you about NGOs and their link to NTOs. I am the President of the board of query now for the past 10 years Kéroul is based in Montreal, Quebec in Canada and our mission is to improve the accessibility of tourism and culture in the region of Quebec. We evaluate, give a certification, we do training we do, we give information to people that want to travel so we basically cater to the needs of both businesses in the travel industry and people who want to travel in the province of Quebec right and you have as you say a long track record there Isabelle going back 40 years so congratulations with that um a little bit about uh our organization enact which is somewhat younger so we got some financial support to start bringing together different kinds of stakeholders as we call them people who have an interest in tourism to talk about accessibility and to get the tourism sector um more aware of what the the needs of people with disabilities are and others with specific access requirements in relation to traveling and tourism to draw together the the good examples that we have in Europe and to try to push the message towards policy makers and towards businesses especially to take more care of accessibility as a fundamental ground stone for for making tourism accessible for all so we've uh worked together as Isabelle says we've been um developing our our skills and our knowledge and uh we came together in 2014 in Montreal which was a pivotal event i think we had the WTO World Tourism Organization together with us there and we developed a a working plan a manifesto if you like for accessible destinations and i think that gave us a very important platform from which to to continue interestingly i think both of us we've had this experience of coming from a from a disability point of view very strongly but working now in all kinds of areas with all kinds of different people so i think that's something uh interesting about both our ngos in the case of Kéroul and uh inaud one thing we have in common is we are trying to bring together many kinds of organizations and work with them because we have a common values and we want to share those values with other kinds of organizations so i was thinking uh Isabelle about this issue what can ngos offer that others don't yeah i think um when the first thing to realize is that there is there are tourism experts there are representatives that are there for the tourism industry but they don't usually have the expertise to understand the needs of people with disabilities and how to apply it to uh the businesses what we have developed through the 40 plus years is that expertise that the specific uh understanding of the needs of people with disabilities most of our the tourism businesses in the province of Quebec are smaller businesses but you also have big actors so we have to when we do our evaluation our certification well we make sure to adapt everything that we do in accordance with their specific needs and through our collaboration we have the possibility to reach out to the regional tourism representatives and organizations and tell them what we can do and what is needed and what are the tools that they could use and our website is full of information that people can get tools that they could need why should they become accessible what would it do for their businesses and i'm just thinking that you are really your advocates but you're also consultants uh so you're you're working uh you're working across the field but let me just ask you then so um how do you get your money is it just from membership fees or you also get money through consultancy to support your organization part of our uh funding comes from the ministry of tourism uh uh some come from uh the training that we give we also have some uh collaborations with let's say the the association of the museums of the province of Quebec to go and evaluate and give certification to all the museums that are part of the organization so that will also bring in some money uh so some of it is consulting some of it is from the training a little bit from the membership but not that much because we're not charging that much for the membership it's more of a symbolic and a support area that we are doing for now a good part of the money comes from what the the ministry of tourism gives us okay great because i'm just aware that uh people watching this they might be thinking so how could we start something like that or uh you know you need you need something to work with and as i said we started with some basis funding from the European commission uh in 2006 and then we created our NGO after the project was finished we created the NGO in 2008. so for this sort of uh period now since 2008 we we've been working uh uh for 11 12 years now we're working towards uh in different ways um to support our organization through the things that you're saying we do some consultancy work we tender for projects that have been published and we also do a lot of our work through European funding we're very lucky to have the funding support from the European commission but we don't get a direct grant we have to compete for the money that we get and then we have a number of experts who will work in the projects whether it's on training or on developing destinations supporting destinations but actually all our officers the board members and so on they're they're all giving their time for free we all have second jobs or we all have a day job and running the organization is a second job actually but um it's very important i think that we have a network we really need to collaborate uh to make tourism accessible for everyone that's something that comes across very strongly i mean tourism is is very much affected by uh the degree of collaboration that you have collaboration between enterprises and public sector in a in a location or a destination but also the collaboration that you can have with the region of the the national uh authority as well and where it works where where things are working best um there is always this organizational level of collaboration which is which is working well if you don't have that um collaboration top down and bottom up working in a good way you're hardly going to succeed to to make your destinations and your businesses accessible so it's as much i think it's as much about training people to understand that they're part of a chain you know we talk about this chain of accessibility and we talk about the value chain in tourism you're part of a chain and if if you don't perform at the right level then you're going to be the weakest link and things will work yeah you're right in that sense that we we see it if if i try to go because i myself live with a disability i'm a quadriplegic and i get around in a motorized wheelchair so that asks for a lot of planning and if i want to go to a destination and i can't find any information on are there going to be any accessible transportation once i get to the destination then i can't go or if i can't find out what you know what accessibility there is in a hotel in the hotel room will i be able to slide my lift to get in and out of bed under the bed any aspect of any one aspect of that travel if i can get the information then i won't go to that destination and that's what people need to understand you can't work in silo you can't just say well i'm doing my job you have to know if everybody's doing their job and i think that's part of what an ngo is really the link between all of these uh in each business uh because then you can reach out and say listen you know there is accessibility in your area we need the information and in the lodging and the activities and the attractions and stuff like that and i think that's part of what the ngo is doing that nobody else is doing because the hotel industry is working their own thing and the transportation industry is working on their own thing so that's part of the work and and the importance of the ngos yeah i wanted just to come back and say a few more things about uh ENAT because we've from our start as an organization we've had part of our mission not only to improve tourism accessibility but also to promote accessible tourism around the world so as you've also said Isabelle we've worked in this international way as well international congresses and uh we're often involved in in workshops and conferences and we used to travel in those days before COVID to pass on the messages and to raise awareness about accessibility in tourism um part of our mission really yeah yeah and we did meet in some of those uh events that were around the world and i think that's important when you have an expertise when you have some knowledge it's important to share it and sometimes you learn even more than you thought you would so there's always a win-win when you go and share with local and international uh events yeah we also um focus a lot on on uh as i call it awareness phrasing you know why why is accessibility needed and what's he good for and who is he good for because it's very important to point out to to the the businesses that really they they can gain a lot by thinking broader about the the access requirements of people with disabilities and all the other people who have access requirements as well especially seniors older people families with small children uh they all need good accessibility and that's why we also push for a universal design approach uh in the design of the environment and the choice of the products that you have and they and the services that you develop as well so it's very important that we we think of the the whole community that is participating in tourism and um and i think that's something that's that's also um with the the maturity that comes with the sector in accessibility that we don't just talk about removing barriers but we talk about enabling people to participate all people and i think that that's a very important uh step that you you you need to push towards this this idea of universal accessibility yes and you know um at Kéroul we used to only do evaluation and certification for businesses or for you know outdoor spaces and and and things like that but we in the past few years developed a new concept of destinations for all so it's a certification for an area it could be for a city that has decided to be fully accessible at a universal level all aspect of getting around is being taken into account that's something more than just saying your hotel is accessible it's saying what is accessible because everything is if we should move to on to talk a little bit about the national tourist boards and the regional tourist boards are a number of cities and a number of regions and national tourist boards and what's interesting for these members i think is that that they can actually use our NGO you can use e-net as a platform to talk to each other and to learn from each other as you said before it's about we've been bringing them to workshops together and also we we run an email uh discussion group so that people can communicate with each other and pass on important information whether it's new policies or some new funding schemes that one of the regions might be rolling out and how do they how do they conduct their visitor surveys for example on accessibility and how do they uh actually count and gather statistics in this difficult area this is these are things that the national tourist boards want to know and they want to learn they have to learn from each other because many of them they're trying it for the first time and if you can give them some support and some input from their their peers from their colleagues in other countries i think this is one of the most valuable things again like you said with a glue that can glue things together and we can bring them together through our NGO uh i think that's that's been one of our successes we hope to uh to bring together our NTO members in in 2022 and start to work again uh on specific themes because they have very specific interest we haven't touched on this in our conversation just now but the marketing is incredibly important how do you market your accessibility and how do you encourage destinations and businesses to to market themselves as accessible because that's often a missing link they can do a lot of work to improve but then they forget to tell anybody about it and that's that's the disaster they they think if you build it they will come but uh they forget that if you don't tell anybody that you have accessibility then people don't know and especially if you're a business that already exists existed before you did your accessibility then you need to let people know that you have changed and that you are not accessible the if they have their evaluation through us then they're on our website in their in our database and and they will most likely be if they are accessible or partially accessible you will also be in our publications and in our Quebec for all uh website it is not only information about accessibility not only for the accessibility but for the nice but what are the nice things that you can see and you know right so it's not just a fact of accessibility but it is a beautiful experience and you can do your own itinerary going on that website so it is a good for the traveler that wants to visit the province but it is also in a way free publicity for those venues and it's it's a positive uh representation of those venues remind people that you exist and you know it's not just having your publicity in ngos or in in in websites that are dedicated dedicated to people with disabilities but it's also doing it in your own publicity if you are a small business or if you are if you have own a business that is accessible it's also to publish it in your own uh documents and website having it up front you know not having it just showing somebody in a wheelchair that is using your facilities or another elderly person being more open even if you in in your regular publications that are not specifically addressed to people with disabilities so that anybody that grabs that brochure or goes on your website and knows somebody that would need that accessibility can tell their neighbor or their friends or somebody in their family be as inclusive as possible not just in the built environment but also in the way that you promote your uh your business right we try as well to to give as much information as possible we we advocate strongly that uh businesses and destinations they should they should develop their own accessibility guide or we to call it an access statement you know tell people what you've got you need to explain actually objectively what you have and even what you don't have because that's the most important thing for the customers to know and then they can make up their own minds if they can manage with them right we've also got a step beyond that which is to to give certification and i i don't know if we should come on to that a little bit let's share with you about that sure um what we do as i mentioned is we go with um accessible partially accessible and and not accessible we don't promote what is not accessible uh and and you touched a little bit on it what we call accessible is when you have a mobility impairment you have access to every public area without any problem so you can go to anywhere that the public is allowed to go uh without any problems when we say it's partially accessible you know you can get around the museum but when you go to the washroom then there's no grab bars next to the toilet or there's two levels and there's only accessibility to one level the other one had this only by step by steps and that way the person can choose if they're gonna go or not some people will say i'm okay with doing it a half because at least i can do half and i understand it's an old building and you can't put an elevator other people will say i don't want to do it if i can't do it all and these requirements are these these specifications you put those in the description so that people can see what exactly what is the barrier here if it's not fully yeah and that that's a key thing to be transparent because uh i we've seen many kinds of of certification labeling systems and the ones that just say well it's uh you know um like a traffic light green orange and red or or uh it's um abc or it's one star two star three stars if you don't know what's behind those labels the stars and so on it doesn't tell you anything you really need all the detail and that's so important for people because we have such a wide range of abilities and disabilities that people need to know exactly what's going on so so that's something that we that's why we talk about this accessibility guide which is very important because it you may also include information about people who have you know we are able to cater for people who have uh special dietary needs and so on so all of those things come into the frame when we think about what the tourists might need doing your own evaluations sometimes can be uh it can be good but depending on your your understanding of accessibility if you're not somebody that had any type of training or any type of of work in uh developing accessibility standards you usually don't understand what accessibility means so it's always better to go to an NGO that is specific to accessibility before you advertise your accessibility it's more complicated for somebody that has a disability to plan their trip so the easier you make it for them to find the information the best the better it is if you have a website there should be something on your front page that links directly to accessibility information right because especially you know you might have somebody that is blind and that has is is working with a screen reader so if they have to go down to the third level before they can find information about accessibility they're just gonna think probably that you don't have any information about accessibility right so the easier you make it on the person on the person to get the information the better it is right i realize that we're talking about a lot of stuff here that we we also would i'm sure you do and we do we cover all of this in in our training courses and training is so important we've been fortunate to get several projects in Europe to develop training courses which we now have online free of charge free to use we have trained tourist guides for example to to guide people with learning difficulties we have a good course for that which is adopted by the professional tourist guides in Europe the organization the federation of European um tourist guides associations we've also got training that's directed towards young people who are just starting off in catering and hospitality sector they may be 16-17 years old and they're learning to be cooks or chefs or receptionists they are getting some training now in in accessibility but you must say i don't know what it's like in Canada but i think it's it seems to be that training on accessibility only happens if you have some really determined advocates to get in there and offer this training it's not part of regular curricula in the hospitality sector no and in here where we have good collaboration with some schools but not you know we still have some work to do uh that's one of our the things that we want to tackle in the next uh year or two is getting into more schools because we already give uh classes our class our basic course is uh three year three and a half hours and we're giving it to people in the travel industry program we also give it directly to people that are already working in the industry so we adapt our classes or our trainings in accordance to the people we are giving to we have one for frontline staff we have one for managers of businesses uh we also have some that are adapted let's say for travel agents that one will be a day and a half rather than being three hours and lately we've been working with the Montreal airport we've we revised some training that are given by loca uh Canadian airlines so we we are adapting it to the public that we are giving it to and we are publicizing the fact that we do give that training because there are more laws that are turning into obligations for different types of businesses like airports and transportation uh companies to give accessibility training and to improve the accessibility of let's say airports and and the different services that are given by uh by those businesses yeah you know in some fields we we hear about this this phrase of business accelerators you know and organizations that specialize in moving businesses ahead typically in the digital field or in the creative industries and so on and really you know in a sense our NGOs are working as innovators and and activators to to get people to move forward on accessibility maybe we just don't use the right marketing language for ourselves sometimes because it would be good to see a bigger call out for you know where can we get the accessibility information and how do we put it into our business but there's also a very important role for the the national tourist boards here and and other related ministries especially education they should also be demanding accessibility as part of the curricula uh at all levels i think and and this is something which is just taking so long to get through um we've talked for years about architecture schools that don't talk about universal design they don't teach it it's not on the curriculum they only teach what's in the law you know about accessibility and that's really that's really such a restrictive concept that you know we only have to follow the law no you have to design something that's that's beautiful and inclusive and sustainable and you have to make it uh good for everybody you know so so we need to change the change the agenda there as well i think in education and training yeah it should be transversal it should be uh and and it you know sometimes schools do have uh do have it in uh in in their in their uh obligations but it's just uh a little one hour or two hour option yeah so it's not it it has to be improved and it has to be mandatory it should be that any project that is presented should only be accepted if it includes accessibility right there's no reason to accept a project that is not doesn't include accessibility especially since it is in the building code that you should if you build something it has to be accessible accessible so why would you accept any project that is presented but does not include accessibility so that's the another important issue anything that is being planned now should have a universal accessibility aspect to it yeah i i fully agree on that and of course we've we've been on involved also in some standards work on on public procurement for accessibility i mean this is this is the key really if the if the government if the the public sector isn't requiring accessibility then it's it's not likely to happen all by itself the important thing is to wish to flag this up everywhere i mean in Europe now we have a European accessibility act which makes uh certain requirements on the delivery of some services but no it's not right across the board it doesn't cover the built environment actually which is strange but uh it's uh that's a political issue that still needs to be worked through but i think we have an ambition anyway it's our ambition to to keep pushing the accessibility line because it's that's the only way that you will eventually make tourism accessible for everyone as you mentioned for for your uh European accessibility law and the Canadian accessibility law that we have now for the past two or three years they're good things that are making some things move along but if you don't have any anything like the American with disabilities act has things that are mandatories and that if you don't do them then you get fines unfortunately that's sometimes that's the way you have to go for the the industry to react there are certain things that should be mandatory i mean and then that you have to comply it is an issue of compliance in many cases there's really a repercussion on on your business if you don't do it uh because i think what we have worked together on like the iso uh norm is a good thing on tournament oh yes yeah and it it it is a good thing but it's only it's it's it's voluntary yeah right again it's NGOs and and and people with disabilities uh advocates that need to remind the industry that that exists and and that is something that they should apply yeah i mean i think the standards are very important uh for a few reasons first of all it gives you that kind of common language we know what we're talking about when we say accessibility because here it's written down we're referring to this and not to that so so people can start to talk the same language it also provides a basis for this kind of this kind of you know what are we going to require and what are we going to recommend but then a business can prove itself against the standard and and use that for its marketing and its advertising and that must be the very uh best reason to do it so it's an incentive i think it's an incentive that gives businesses a possibility and public sector because that that tourism for all standards can also be used by the public sector training and learning and that kind of thing so it's very wide but it also gives an incentive that once you've followed this standard then you can promote yourself and be promoted because you're following that standard so i think that's the that's really the key we we like to lead by example and as one of our good colleagues in in Flanders in Belgium uh Peter Geisler has said you know if one destination or one business is getting more customers because they're more accessible then it's going to make other ones jealous and that's probably the best reason or the best trigger to get people to act they're going to see that others are successful if they if they follow the standard and if they prove that it makes a difference to their bottom line you know i have the best example for that is when i mentioned earlier in the introduction that we received a new list price by the WTO for the product of the accessible road once we put that together and it was only you know it was the regions and the businesses that wanted to be part of it that could be part of it in the beginning out of the 17 regions that we had we only had four that wanted to be part of the accessible road and only a few businesses but then once they saw the publicity they were getting and how they were getting more people because of uh the accessible road then we got more regions and more uh businesses that started it wasn't us calling us any calling them anymore it was them calling us and saying we want to be part of this product because uh we see that our neighbors are getting uh more visitors and and more publicity so we we we want that too so it does work sure i was just thinking um that we we may be coming to the end now shortly but um i was just wondering about the question of of uh developing uh accessibility further and developing into you know the kind of quality tourism that everybody should be able to access are we are we able to provide models and patterns and plans for innovation i mean can you see innovation coming through the role of NGOs here what what role do NGOs play in this kind of uh area of driving things forward towards the leading edge of where we we need to be in tourism well i think we do have a a strong wall there again because uh we have developed an expertise here in the province of Quebec and you know there are nine other provinces that don't have an NGO like ours and i think sharing that expertise making sure that other provinces have the same support is very important i think we also look at what is being done elsewhere and try and improve when we can and to help other areas when they want our help the key here is to keep in contact and to to go to those events and to reach out to other regions and make sure that we keep learning from each other and improving so i think it's really our responsibility to do that yeah sure i think we we've got uh some good experiences from from working with many of our our members of course uh including the Andre foundation in Spain they're working very much on technology as well and i'm just thinking that there there are many areas uh that need to be developed and can be improved and i think that tourism is a great arena for for experimenting and finding new ways for new markets and then for for bringing people together but also there's this thing about working for the community as well and i know you're very tied to the community now we're we're an organization that's more spread out perhaps i think it's a very important that the the tourism sector as a whole takes good care of the communities that uh that are hosting all these uh visitors and right now with the COVID i just want to maybe move towards the end of this uh conversation how can we support communities to get through COVID and to make the tourism work for them as well as for the visitors and in COVID has reminded us of this even more that the tourism business it is a business there is the accessibility of buildings but it's really a human centered business if you don't have tourists you don't have tourism and and so we have to make sure that we both reassure people with disabilities that there are ways to travel and do it safely and also remember to talk to the businesses and and remind them that when they take uh precautions and when they uh adapt to the coveted and all of the specifications that you have to do to to be able to greet tourists keep in mind to make these uh accessible you know i saw too many places where you had a place to wash your hands when you came in but it you had to press the pedal that was on the floor to be able to have the water so how can i do that in my wheelchair or how can the blind person find where the pedal is and things like that so you know these things have to be understood and reminded uh so that it is accessible to all so there's both aspects i think i think that's a good uh good way to end uh we've we've all got many challenges ahead of us still with the the COVID the coronavirus but i think the the key thing is that we we need to work together and and i know that you are doing that we're trying also we've worked with the UNWTO as well to create some guidelines for this and i think the the uh the challenge ahead is uh is still great um as you say we've been work you've been working we've been working on this for a number of years but every uh destination and every business can still always improve its accessibility and i suppose the message from both of us is that uh our organizations are here to help and we hope that there will be many other organizations like ours that can work in their own regions their own economies and bring together all those who can contribute to a more accessible tourism for everyone yeah and i think we are all interested in collaborating and in making sure that we can help each other so right now we're talking about you know the APEC region we're talking about you're in Europe where in America but there can be some local local organizations that can help you in what you're looking for or the way you can improve what you're doing but we are also even though we're not in the same physical area and COVID has definitely demonstrated how much we can reach out and and and talk to each other even if we can't travel to other countries so keep that in mind that there's all if you're looking to improve what you're doing accessibility wise we're here we're ready and we're willing to help yeah thank you so thanks to everyone watching and uh thanks to you again Isabelle and I'm Ivor Ambrosoe I'm with Isabelle from Kéroul in Canada. Have a good day have a good afternoon good evening in whichever part of the world you're watching this thank you talk to you soon thanks
2022-04-28 11:38
