Access Tourism NZ TOURISM FOR PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES, SENIORS, AND AGEING BOOMERS IN NEW ZEALAND AND WORLDWIDE

The New Zealand population is ageing, along with that of the rest of the world.  This fact is significant for the tourism, travel, and hospitality industry because disability increases with age.  And it is older people who already comprise our biggest domestic and international visitor groups.  Statistics New Zealand reports that at 30 June 2010, half the male population of New Zealand was over 35.5 years of age, and half of females were over 37.6 years of age. Over the last 10 years, the median age has increased by 2.0 years for males and 2.5 years for females.  The population aged 40-64 (all Baby Boomers and some leading edge GenX) increased in number by 1.5%, while those 65 or older increased by 3% between June 2009 and June 2010. Over the decade ended 30 June 2010, the population aged 15–39 years reduced from 36% to 34% of the population, while over the same period, those aged 40-64 increased by 1.5% to 32%, and those aged 65-79 grew at an average annual rate of 1.9%. In the 10 years ended June 2010, there was also an increase in the proportion of the population aged 80 years and over (80+), from 2.8% to 3.5%.

New Zealand needs to begin to seriously consider improving access in all walks of life – including in tourism, travel, and hospitality – if we are to manage the opportunities presented by the ageing of the population and the resulting changes in ability in our population and the populations of countries that are our major tourism markets.  We can only build a truely sustainable tourism sector by including access considerations.  Unlike our main rivals, we are as yet taking very few steps in this direction.

About 50 people attended a seminar on Access Tourism given in mid-May by Sandra Rhodda of the New Zealand Tourism Research Institute (NZTRI)and Director of Access Tourism New Zealand.  The seminar was held at Auckland University of Technology.  (AUT).    Audience members included tourism operators, business people, academics, and individuals from local councils, Qualmark, a government member, and people from a variety of NGOs.   Rhodda gave a summary of why New Zealand needs to develop an Access Tourism sector, mainly from the perspective of the economic imperative to do so.  She also gave examples of developments in Access Tourism in the rest of the world, pointed out how New Zealand is lagging in this area, and discussed the kinds of research that New Zealand needs to do to get such an industry sector going.  To see the presentation, go here. 

The seminar was a prelude to the up and coming one day conference on Access Tourism - also to be run by NZTRI/AUT at the central Auckland campus – on October 4th.  The conference will look at various aspects of Access Tourism, including some of the following: the current situation NZ and worldwide, website access and information best practice, government strategy, policy, and obligations, best practice in transport , accommodation, and attractions access, legal aspects, and quality rating for Access Tourism products in New Zealand.  It will also include brainstorming sessions on strategies for advancing the development of Access Tourism in New Zealand and developing collaboration as a tool to advance that development. These topics are based on those most popularly picked from a list of possible topics in an online survey. Registration and programme details will be available shortly on this website and on the NZTRI website.

Guest blog, continuing on from 22 June

I spoke in the last blog about the fact that the more research we have done, the more comfortable we feel about our business idea and whether it’s a go-er. We plan to look at all the facts and figures at the end of June and then, take a deep breathe, and decide whether we ‘go for it’ or not.  I tell you one of the things we have been a bit blown away about has been the people involved in this part of the business community. Two main comments here really.  Firstly, every single person we have spoken to or contacted to ask for assistance, advice or information has fallen over themselves to be helpful. Does this sector attract a certain type of person? A repeated comment that comes back is along the lines of ‘yes, please start this business, there is plenty of opportunity”.  Existing operators have had to deal with the fact that whilst they operate their business well, there are such gaps in other areas (the stories I have heard about accommodation that really is accessible ……) that they are thankful to have others starting to consider if they can provide extra service or plug some of the gaps. Can you name another sector where existing operators open up and tell you what they know because they are keen to help you get started???   Secondly, the same names come up time and time again. It’s a small, almost intimate sector where, in the words of the Cheers show, ‘everyone knows your name’.  Hopefully for our next blog, we will be able to share with you some of our findings from our survey – until then!

October 4 2010 has been set as the date for the first ever conference in New Zealand on Access Tourism.  The conference will look at various aspects of Access Tourism, including some of the following: the current situation in NZ and worldwide, website access and information best practice, government strategy, policy, and obligations, best practice in transport , accommodation, and attractions access,  training for access in the tourism and hospitality sector, legal aspects, and quality rating for Access Tourism products in New Zealand.   It will also include brainstorming sessions on strategies for advancing the development of Access Tourism in New Zealand and developing collaboration as a tool to advance that development.  These topics are based on those most popularly picked from a list of possible topics in an online survey.   The conference is being run by the New Zealand Tourism Research Institute at Auckland University of Technology, and will be a no frills sustainable event.  For more information, contact sandrarhodda at hotmail.com.

Guest blog: continuing on from June 10 2010

So whilst our survey is out in the ether and hopefully going viral,  we have turned our attention to the money side of the business. We are working with a business mentor and one of the first exercises we did with them was identify what were the critical success factors of this possible business.  Customer satisfaction was of prime importance – thus the survey to ensure we understood from our potential customer’s perspective what they want so we could craft our business around that. Secondly was the fact that the business obviously had to be financially viable.   We started off with some generic type spreadsheets, break-even analysis ,and cash flow type things. An eye opener for me, and I think I already knew this but had not experienced it, was that the more research we did, the easier it has become to do these spreadsheets – clarity has improved 10 fold as we have become more confident with understanding the sector and what specific part of the sector we want to work with. From this understanding, other things start falling into place. Whilst our first set of spreadsheets had us conquering the world of accessible tourism, it’s now becoming very targeted and increased in detail.

(Note: Access Tourism NZ is not involved in the survey in any way)

Guest article by Veroniek Maat, Intern, NZ Tourism Research Institute, Auckland University of Technology, and Masters Student, Leisure, Tourism, and Environment, Wageningen University, The Netherlands

Regional festivals, art and culture exhibitions, food tasting events, and markets are planned in anticipation of the Rugby World Cup 2011 to be held in New Zealand.  During the six week event, locals and visitors will be keen to explore more of New Zealand, enabling the regions to showcase their industries, people, arts and culture.  As the regions get ready to host overseas tourists and Kiwis, events have been listed on the Festival Programme 2011, an official RWC2011 site. Welcoming visitors means welcoming all ranges of potential visitors, including children, youngsters, adults, seniors, men, women, foreigners, locals – and people with disabilities. 

The events presently listed on the Festival Program give very little or no information about access, whether access for visitors with a visual, hearing or mobility impairment. Parts of this  website are still under construction but few of the events listed at the time of writing have taken into account  visits from the disabled. Outdoor events such as festivals and markets state nothing about disabled parking lots, paved paths, ramps, Braille trails, or audio tours. Regrettably, out of the 49 events listed, only one of the theater performance group shows engagement with less mobile visitors by describing on their website ease of access to their shows.  

The museums and galleries of New Zealand will also open their doors for RWC tourists. The Museum of New Zealand, Te Papa Tongarewa in Wellington has included visitors with a disability in their strategy. Disabled parking, adapted guided tours, education programs, wheelchairs, a scooter, audio guides, captions on videos and hearing loops are provided in this venue and people with disabilities will feel welcomed. Govett Brewster Art Gallery is also pro-active in welcoming disabled guests.  It was actively involved with New Plymouths District Council’s Disability Strategy, offered its first Sign Language-interpreted exhibition tour during the Sign Language Awareness Week in 2009, and altered the size of text on wall labels. Besides providing access for the visually impaired, mobility- impaired visitors are encouraged to visit, knowing the galleries’ space lends itself for wheelchair access and wheelchairs are for hire (website). Extensive search for disabled access at other significant museums and galleries throughout New Zealand shows that their websites lack access information about their premises. If New Zealand event producers, museum, and galleries want to offer an “unforgettable RWC experience”to all visitors, they will need to catch up with the access strategies of Te Papa Tongarewa and Govett Brewster Art Gallery.  They should invest in accessible experiences and information provision for people with disabilities because lack of attention for the fastest-growing, largest-spending segment of Baby Boomers (who will have more disability with age), seniors and people with a disability will result in loss of revenues and decline of New Zealand’s destination image.

Access Tourism NZ is pleased that efforts in Auckland around access for people with disabilities (PwDs) and Rugby World Cup 2011 are continuing.  We first noted on this website last month that Auckland is leading the way when it comes to this topic.  Now the latest Auckland’s Rugby World Cup 2011 Newsletter (May 2010) lists a discussion of disabilities and RWC as one of six newsworthy items.  The newsletter is aimed at tourism businesses and in the article – titled “Don’t miss out on a big part of your audience” – operators are given compelling reasons for catering for PwDs. 

Minnie Baragwanath, Auckland City Council’s disability programme advisor, says in the article “The Disability Resource Centre has been doing a lot of work looking at the facilities at the key venues and we’ve received a really positive response. People are keen to know what they can do to help.”  One of the first initiatives Minnie’s team is tackling is having mobility scooters available to visitors to the city.  Then she plans to study access implemented at other world-class events.  “Nick Morris from Melbourne is helping us put together an action plan of what we want to achieve. Nick’s worked on accessibility planning at the Beijing Olympics and Paralympics, so he’ll be a great source of ideas.”

The next step is to communicate to businesses about what they can do to ensure people with a disability can access their business.  “It might be something as simple as whether a disabled person can actually get into your shop.”  To aid in this, an Event Ready kit for businesses – which will be available early next year – will include information on how to improve access.

Guest Post:  Continuing on from April 16, 26, and May 13………….

One of the interesting things we had to get our heads around was our own assumptions and thinking about the disability sector. I am personally desperate to avoid offending someone by the words I use or the assumptions I make about what the disability sector (can I call it that???) wants or needs. It’s very easy to have it creep into your business planning “surely they won’t want to do that activity” but in reality, if I asked them they might respond and say “of course I want to, why shouldn’t I?” It’s like dealing with a foreign culture and not knowing the subtle rules. We have been thinking around this question of how to find the information we need to help us with the planning of our business proposal and we have decided to go to the “horses’ mouth” via a survey. More on this soon.  Another thing we discussed was why we were thinking purely in terms of the international visitor market for customers; why not consider the domestic visitor market? Much to think about.

Guest Post:  Continuing on from April 16 and 26………….

 Still on the research trail – still trying to understand the relationships between bits of information that we can find which might help us understand the way the disability sector and the tourism sector overlap in NZ.  I should point out the obvious and that is that neither the tourism sector nor the accessibility sector is familiar to Kirk or me. We currently operate a small business but in a completely different sector. So at this stage we are accumulating a lot of information on things like disability friendly accommodation, transport options or focused tours offered but it’s quite fragmented. When we do  find it, the websites are either very sparse, as old as the hills with no current content and links that were usable, or purely focused on one geographic area of the country only.  I was quite surprised that the government sources on visitor arrivals etc were completely unable to provide any facts on the number of international tourist arriving with special needs – which is going to make it hard to do some serious planning for our proposed business – we won’t know actual numbers, where they are traveling from or why they are visiting NZ. We will have to use our imagination to find substitutes as an indicator of market size or need, instead of quantifiable facts from a reputable source. But don’t fear!! We have a cunning plan!!     Talking to people has proved a little bit more valuable at this stage – it’s been lovely how willing people are to see our project develop and all agree that there is some real gaps in the tourism market place in providing services to disabled travelers.

In 2011, New Zealand will host the Rugby World Cup (RWC2011).  In anticipation of this event, Tourism Auckland has run a series of “Visitor Ready Workshops”.  The workshops were a regional RWC2011 initiative funded by the councils of the region.  In a first for New Zealand, the sessions include one on access for people with disabilities.  Given by Auckland City Council Disability Advisor Minnie Baragwanath, the session can be viewed here on webcasts.  The workshop aimed to help Auckland tourism providers better understand the business opportunity and challenge of the often invisible disabilities market.  Minnie also manages the RWC2011 access work-stream.

The following is guest blog from Hilary Rayner, Muscular Dystrophy Association of New Zealand Inc.

There are currently no web sites or information portals that you can use in New Zealand or anywhere else in the world that will give you accurate information about accessible accommodation. Often our members are given information about hotel accommodation that is not correct. Having an accessible bathroom but three steps to access the room in the first place is no good. What we require are some basic standards that rooms are marked by, we do not expect all rooms to have hoists and beds that are a certain height from the floor. But as a basic minimum the rooms should be wheelchair accessible and all bathrooms should be accessible for wheelchair users including the showers. How difficult can it be to develop a basic standard for building / remodelling rooms.  There are now toilets that are a standard height for disabled users so why are these not being used?  Does it have anything to do with lack of knowledge or cutting corners?

In relation to airlines they should have a better way of dealing with people that use automatic wheelchairs with tilts etc. It is not acceptable that these travellers have to be removed from their adapted chairs for at least an hour before their flight and plonked into a manual chair which is uncomfortable, ill fitting and not supportive. It is humiliating when for an hour your head and body are not supported and you need to be held back into your chair by another human being! Education of these services and policies that improve travel is essential and a basic human right!

We have to do better.  We are not asking for the world just asking for the same standard as everyone else!

Guest Post:  Continuing on from April 16^th………………….

Hi there, well we have done a lot in the first couple of weeks of developing our business idea – a small tourism-based business focused on travelers with sensory or physical disabilities. Because we are thinking about this sector now we see people facing with challenges everywhere – working in town, at the supermarket, going about their lives. It’s a bit like when you buy a white car and suddenly everyone has a white car but you had never noticed.  I’m also surprised by the comments of some of the people in my immediate circle – everyone knows someone who has a physical disability.   In conversations we all talk about how hard it must be to get around or do things but its not reflected in our street design, our language, or our thinking.  Why is that?   Someone made the comment to me that it’s like a subculture living under the eye of a dominant society who can all get around easily with no limitations.

Business-wise we have hit the internet search engines and started reading what’s coming up – there is not a hell of a lot out there that is NZ specific.  My first impression is that NZ is not as advanced in this area as the rest of the world. There seem to be a couple of names only that pop up in the NZ context (Sandra Rhodda with her West Coast research is the main one).  But we have seen some very advanced websites from overseas companies and organisations.

Worldwide, cruise passengers are expected to reach 14.3 million passengers this year, one million more than in 2009. In NZ, the cruise industry is growing faster than any other part of the tourism industry, and is worth $3 million/day in foreign exchange earnings.   The important role played by older tourists in this growing sector was last week recognized by the NZ Tourism Industry Association when CEO Tim Cossar stated that “the cruise market is being driven by high spending Baby Boomers”.   But Access Tourism New Zealand (ATNZ) has pointed out many times in the past (most recently, 6/11/2009,  9/12/2009, 13/1/2010, 3/2/2010), that our ports are ill prepared for an influx of older visitors, especially when it comes to improving access for ageing Baby Boomers, cruise passengers who are already disabled, and the increase in cruisers who will have a disability in future.  Why?  Because disability increases with age. 

 The rise in the number of cruise ships visiting New Zealand has been meteoric in the last several years.  The New Zealand Ezine Inside Tourism (IT) reported earlier this month that Ports of Auckland processed nearly 6,000 passengers in a four day period, and that the city will host 60 cruise ships over the season (IT 771).  Four Corners NZ travel news reports that 24 cruise ships are scheduled to dock in Lytellton this month, and some of these will also be visiting Kaikoura and Akaroa.  And Canterbury is hosting three times as many cruise passengers than they did just three years ago, according to Christchurch and Canterbury Tourism chief executive Christine Prince.

Cruise passengers travelling to New Zealand tend to be in older age groups.  72% are aged between 55 – 74 years, while only 5% were under the age of 40 (2006/2007 Cruise Research, Tourism New Zealand).  But even the age of non-cruise tourists to NZ has risen over the last decade (Tourism Leading Indicator Monitor August 2008), a trend likely to continue as the huge Baby Boomer generation retires and starts travelling more.

Along with an increase in the age of our visitors will come an increase in visitors with disabilities. In the cruise industry - whether as a result of recent successful consumer lawsuits overseas, or a dawning realization that travellers with disabilities have money to spend – cruise lines are slowly removing barriers to people with disabilities (CPA).  Last year, Access Now, a Miami Beach-based organization that promotes rights for disabled travellers, settled a lawsuit with Carnival Cruise Lines over lack of accessibility on the company’s cruise ships. Access Now currently has pending lawsuits against several other cruise lines, including Royal Caribbean, Norwegian Cruise Line, Holland America Line, Westtours and Costa Crociere. Several of these companies, however, are already in the process of improving accessibility for travellers with disabilities. Holland America, for example, has dedicated managers who oversee accessibility issues and requirements of guests with access needs. It would appear that these companies are recognizing the fact that wheelchair users and those with other disabilities already represent a legitimate segment of the cruise market.

Given the rise in cruisers, the ageing of cruise tourists, the consequent predicted rise in disability as cruisers age, and the increasing provision of access on ships resulting in more cruisers that also have disabilities, Access Tourism New Zealand advocates for an improvement in access at cruise ship terminals beyond mere compliance.  There are a number of planned revamps of cruise terminals in New Zealand, including in Auckland and Lytellton.  An inclusion of design principles that take into account the needs of people with disabilities and seniors can only but help the New Zealand cruise industry. 

Why focus on travellers with disabilities?  Because it is ageing Baby Boomers – who will experience increasing disability as they age – who have the disposable income to spend on-shore, and who will swell the current ranks of people with disabilities who already want to travel, but have few choices because of lack of provision. Because travellers with disabilities “see the benefit of taking a cruise because many ships now have accessible features for people with physical, sight, and hearing disabilities” (Tierney, June 2009), we can expect to see more such travellers coming ashore at New Zealand ports.