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

2010 Legacies Now Measuring Up

The Vancouver Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games held earlier this year have left lasting legacies for the disabled. Will New Zealand take the same opportunities presented by holding Rugby World Cup in 2011?  It is probable that we have left things a little late to make any large differences, although some progress is being made.  Access Tourism NZ has already described how planning to improve access around the London Olympic and Paralympic Games in 2012 began in 2004 and is ongoing.  In the case of British Columbia, the organizing committee for the Vancouver Games  (VANOC) knew from the beginning that its responsibility was not only to organize and stage successful Games that upheld the values of the Olympic and Paralympic movements, but also to improve the communities in which those Games would take place.  VANOC’s sustainability targets also included social sustainability.  In 2000, the Vancouver 2010 Bid Corporation partnered with the Province of British Columbia to establish the 2010 Legacies Now program. Since that time, 2010 Legacies Now has worked with more than 4,000 organizations province-wide, investing in programs that will be self-sustaining legacies in the areas of sport, healthy living, literacy, arts, volunteerism and accessibility.

 The planned legacies of the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games are numerous and multi-faceted. Of interest to Access Tourism are the following:

• precedent-setting planning and accountability through ongoing stakeholder engagement with consortiums representing persons with a disability
• enhanced accessibility in Whistler and Vancouver for people with disabilities; Whistler is now one of the most accessible resort communities in the world
• barrier-free guidelines for accessible events and accommodation
• A program called Accessible Tourism, a collaboration between 2010 Legacies Now, the Province, Tourism BC and other partners to help 3,600 tourism businesses and 27 recreations measure their accessibility and learn how to improve it so they can draw and serve people with disabilities, young and old (Scrapbook, p.15)
• The Measuring Up program, supported by 2010 Legacies Now along with the Province of BC, which helped more than 100 communities assess and improve accessibility and inclusion for people with disabilities, including the elderly. Examples of the types of projects supported through Measuring Up include enhanced sidewalks and more accessible parks and transit options.
• Built environment:
  •  Richmond’s Speed Skating  Oval designed to meet and exceed national accessibility standards
  • Whistler Olympic plaza was slated to continue to serve as an outdoor gathering place for residents and visitors, equipped with an open grass lawn, amphitheatre seating, a 13,000 sq ft playground that is accessible to people with and without disabilities, outdoor performance spaces and public art commemorating the Games
  • The Olympic and Paralympic Village Whistler, located a short ride away from venues for Olympic and Paralympic athletes and officials, has a blend of accessible apartments, townhomes and hostel accommodation alongside a High Performance Centre
  • The new Vancouver Olympic Centre, which includes swimming pool change rooms  equipped with movable screen walls so all users, including those in wheelchairs, can use them more easily
  • City of Vancouver project “City Hall Community Garden”, with 40 new plots, eight of them accessible to seniors and people with disabilities
  • Three state-of-the-art playgrounds in Vancouver, Whistler and Richmond, which enable all children, able and disabled, to play together

The London Festival of Architecture (LFA) is a city-wide celebration of architecture in the capital. As London gears up for the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games the festival looks at ways that planners, architects and local communities play their part in the development of “The Welcoming City” and access for people with disabilities.  For example, as part of the festival, LFA commissioned a water and solar powered wheelchair lift to address the challenges of equal access to historic sites.  The lift is designed by Matthew Lloyd Architects working with Architecture Inside Out and Price and Myers with the support of the Royal Engineers and the Royal Parks and can be seen at the Duke of York Steps, St James’.  The lift is an experimental project designed and created to raise public awareness about access, sustainability, and architecture in the public realm.

A Sensory Park for the visually impaired has recently been created in Chandigarh, India.   The local Institute for the Blind teamed up with the administration and Municipal Corporation to create a park similar to that for the blind in other parts of the world.  The park has many aromatic herbs and medicinal plants like jasmine, lavlena, albertine, mint, neem, tulsi, and bamboo which visitors can smell and touch. Other parts of Asia have similar gardens.  For example, Osaka, Japan has a wheelchair Sensory Garden where visitors can touch the exhibits (including sculptures). In the UK, there are many sensory gardens designed for people with disabilities, including at Hunstanton and Harrow, and in the USA, the National Garden Clubs website lists many such gardens in many states. Australia also has at least some such gardens for people with sight impairment and other disabilities (such as at the Lucas Garden School), and New Zealand has at least one.  The Sensation Walk Braille Trail in the Wellington Botanical Gardens is a 20 minute meander from the Treehouse, up to a Herb Garden and then a Rose Garden. The trail features a selection of plants and landscape elements chosen to stir the senses.  Features on the trail are marked with Braille posts and tactile footpath markers.

Fishbowl Cards is a company which focuses on children, adults, families and friends living with disabilities. What makes Fishbowl Cards unique is that there is no other product like it in the marketplace.

The passion behind Fishbowl Cards comes from Tina O’Neill Finn.  She realized – through her own experiences, a 30+ year career in the social expressions industry , a recognition that there are nearly 55 million individuals living with disabilities in the USA, and more than 100 million family members and friends who support them – that people with disabilities have absolutely no representation in the greeting card aisles of America’s retailers. In 1998, Tina began working to create and market a line of greeting cards, posters, and figurines that reflect the celebration of hope, recovery, improvement, achievement, love and support that children with special needs, their families and friends experience every day.

Leading up to, and beyond, the Vancouver 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games, 2010 Legacies Now has worked with the Province of BC, Tourism BC, and numerous other partners to help make BC a premier travel destination for people with disabilities.  2010 Legacies Now has created sustainable social and economic legacies around British Columbia in the lead up to the Vancouver 2010 Winter Games.  They strategically invested in programs, organizations and communities, and through their networks, leveraged existing relationships and facilitated new partnerships to create self-sustaining community legacies.  This includes in the arena of Access Tourism.

2010 Legacies Now has supported programs and community projects which will continue to live for many years, creating an even greater impact than could have ever been imagined through social change and social innovation.

As a result of this legacy development work, 2010 Legacies Now and a number of their programs have been awarded Vancouver 2010 Sustainably Stars.  The Sustainability Star program recognizes Games-related sustainability innovations, focusing on social, economic or environmental benefit, including in Access Tourism. 

2010 Legacies Now is recognized internationally as a leader and innovator in community legacy development and social change and they are very proud of the work they  have been able to accomplish together with their partners. The legacies from the work will continue in communities throughout BC well beyond 2010.

Winchester City Centre retailers are being offered a free disability awareness training course,Welcome All next year.   Winchester City Council’s tourism service recently commissioned a Destination Access Audit of Winchester City Centre with the support of Tourism South East, the regional tourism agency, and funding from the South East England Development Agency. The audit was designed to build a picture of the ‘Winchester experience’ from the perspective of visitors with a range of disabilities. The consultants tested out the rail station, buses, taxis, car parks, public toilets, shops, eateries, hotels and the Shopmobility service. They also looked for information on websites and in printed brochures which would help someone with a disability to plan a comfortable visit to the city.

The City Council is now working with other organisations to implement the report’s recommendations, so that Winchester is ready to ‘Welcome the World’ in time for the 2012 London Olympic and Paralympic games. The disability awareness training for retailers is one of the many actions stemming from the report.

Welcome All training has been organised by Winchester City Council with support from the Winchester Business Improvement District (BID) and Tourism South East. It will be tailored to the needs of local retailers, to help them provide a real welcome for customers with special needs and requirements.

The course is part of the Welcome to Excellence range of customer care courses provided by Tourism South East and recognised nationally by the tourism industry. It covers a range of sensory, mobility and learning difficulties; giving retailers the skills they need to communicate more effectively with their customers.

Retailers will learn how to provide a warm welcome to disabled visitors, boost sales and the reputation of their organisation, offer a first class service to customers with specific needs, and identify their responsibilities under the Disability Discrimination Act.

Alison Woods, Winchester City Council’s Tourist information Centre Manager said: “Tourism businesses, including Winchester Tourist Information Centre, have all found the course extremely useful. It showed us that there are many simple adjustments we can make which will enhance accessibility for all our customers.”

Cllr Patricia Stallard, Portfolio Holder for Heritage, Culture and Sport, added:

“As a council, we are committed to making the most of the many and varied opportunities which the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games can bring. I am delighted that we are using the magic of 2012 to improve services for those with disabilities, which I know will also benefit a wide range of other residents including parents with prams and older people.”

How do blind people use a computer without seeing the screen or using a mouse.  A blind blogger tells us how here:

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“Work in Progress” is the annual report from the Ministry for Disability Issues to the House of Representatives on the implementation of the New Zealand Disability Strategy.  In it, the New Zealand Minister For Disabilities Issues Tariana Turia has acknowledged that many in the (NZ) disabilities sector “have expressed impatience at the pace of the (NZ) Disability Strategy’s implementation”.    She goes on to say that “The Ministerial Committee on Disability Issues believes we can make better progress through focusing our actions on the three major influences on what disabled people can do: their personal circumstances, and those of their whānau (family) and friends who support them; the accessibility of the world we live in; and the degree to which specialised disability supports work for them.”

In the same report, Gary Williams, CE of the New Zealand Disabled Persons Assembly states that “We are keen that our position is not made worse by an under-enthusiastic approach to the New Zealand Disability Strategy’s implementation.” Williams goes on to report that The World Bank estimates it costs the global economy between $US1.3 and $US1.9 trillion a year to exclude disabled people. For New Zealand, the Disabled Persons Assembly estimates this cost to be about $10 billion a year. This is a huge lost opportunity for New Zealand, and it is a good illustration of what can be gained – both by disabled people and the country as a whole – by implementing the New Zealand Disability Strategy.

Williams sees a further opportunity to see progress in an international context when New Zealand presents its first report to the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities next year (2010). The report on the implementation of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities is likely to be substantially informed by progress reports such as the “Work in Progress”. “We are”, says Williams, “like the Ministerial Committee on Disability Issues, keen to see further actions. We are also keen to see more participatory or partnership initiatives. We want the New Zealand Disability Strategy’s implementation to be the best it can be.  However, for the last eight years it has been evident the implementation of the New Zealand Disability Strategy has lacked direction. It seems that, while the very essence of the Strategy was to have a whole-of-government approach, most agencies act in a mutually exclusive way with no discernable end goal.”

Williams called on government agencies to have budgets and timelines for the successful implementation of the Disability Strategy.

Carluke Leisure Centre has been awarded four-star visitor attraction status by Visit Scotland. Refurbishment of the Centre have included upgrading facilities for PwDs.  Quality advisors from the national tourism organisation praised a number of developments, including improvements in equipment and access for those with disabilities.  David Adams McGilp, regional director for VisitScotland, said: “We are delighted to award Carluke Leisure Centre with VisitScotland’s four star award which acknowledges the time, care and investment made into such a fine, quality facility.

“Tourism plays a major part in this region and in the current climate it is crucial we work together to get tourism back on track.”  VisitScotland has Access Tourism information for potential visitors

Ipsos Reid was commissioned by 2010 Legacies Now to conduct market and consumer behaviour research to better understand the accessible tourism market. The objectives of this research were to identify the factors that influence behaviour and purchase decisions for travellers with disabilities; and, quantify the size of the accessible tourism market for B.C. The findings in include both qualitative and quantitative research data.

Travellers with accessibility needs make up one of the fastest growing tourism markets. One in eight people worldwide is living with a disability and, in North America alone, people with disabilities spend more than $13 billion each year on travel. Using this research and making the necessary changes will open B.C. up to these travellers and ensure B.C. is one of the most accessible travel destinations in the world.

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Mary and Max

Out of Australia comes a brilliant movie about diversity, difference, and friendship.  “Mary and Max”, a multiple award winning  film directed by Victoria’s  Adam Elliot and produced by Melanie Coombs has just been released on DVD. The story, told through claymation, shows the progression of a friendship as it develops through writing letters over a number of years.  This film will make you laugh and cry, all at the same time.  You will leave the theatre or your lounge seat fully challenged, and totally satisfied. 

Mary Dinkle, a chubby lonely eight-year-old girl living in the suburbs of Melbourne, and Max Horovitz, a 44-year-old, severely obese, Jewish man with Asperger’s Syndrome living in the chaos of New York, strike up an extraordinary bond.  Spanning twenty years and two continents, Mary and Max’s friendship survives much more than the average diet of life’s ups and downs.  All the characters in this movie are drawn with depth and display a range of real human experience, strengths, and weaknesses.   The film stars Philip Seymour Hoffman (Doubt, The Boat That Rocked), Toni Collette (The Black Balloon, TV’s United States of Tara), Barry Humphries (Dame Edna) and Eric Bana (Star Trek. The Other Boleyn Girl).

Writer/Director Adam Elliot’s previous short films, Harvie Krumpet, Uncle, Cousin, and Brother are amongst the most successful short films made in Australia.  They have won 5 Australian Film Institute awards, as well as many international awards including the Oscar.  The shorts continue to screen at festivals around the world, on the internet at http://www.atomfilms.com and on various DVD compilations, where they continue to entertain and move audiences.

Divine reports that 37-year-old Elliot says he is fascinated by human nature. “I’m also fascinated by the crazy idea that we are all striving for perfection… Everyone has a flaw that they may not want, that some people embrace, some people ignore, some people try and cure it, some people label it as a disability, some people label it as an advantage.”

Elliot says he “gets annoyed when people say I make films about disability”. “I just make films about people around me. Basically what I’m saying is that everybody is unusual and that everybody is unique and everybody has imperfection. It’s all about perception and how you can forgive yourself and others.”

Mum

 Read more about Elliot here

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The recently released “Step Up Auckland” report (see 6 November, below) outlines some of the key aspirations and issues of PwDs in Auckland city.  A joint research project by the Auckland City Council, Auckland District Health Board, Waitakere City Council, and Auckland University of Technology Institute of Public Policy, the report was launched in September 2009.

A video of Aucklanders with a variety of disabilities is available on You Tube.  They discuss transport and other aspects of getting around the city, social participation, work, support, and their aspirations of how Auckland city could be.

At last week’s U.N. “ESCAP Takayama Congress on the creation of an inclusive and accessible community in Asia and the Pacific”, a committee of eleven representatives created a declaration laying out 20 recommendations aimed at improving accessibility for people with disabilities (PwDs) in the region.  The committee, chaired by Aiko Akiyama, Social Development Division, U.N. Economic and Social Commission for Asia-Pacific, included members from Malaysia, the Philippines, Pakistan, Hong Kong, Japan, and New Zealand.  Congress participants from 15 Asian-Pacific countries subsequently adopted the declaration at the U.N. meeting.   The committee and other congress participants represented governments, the private sector, disabilities organisations, individuals with disability, accessible tourism organisations, academic and research institutions, and/or development organisations.

The “Takayama Declaration on Development of Community for All” lays out recommendations on regional networking, advocacy, policy development, research and data collection, capacity building and resource mobilization on improving accessibility.

The Congress was held from 24 to 26 November in Takayama, Gifu Prefecture in central Japan , using the host city as an example of a success story.

A mountain resort, Takayama has been promoting accessible tourism for the last 18 years, creating economic opportunities as well as a more barrier-free environment for persons with disabilities. The local authorities, working in partnership with the private sector and civil society organizations, made improvement to facilities in the city to make them more barrier-free, and purchased accessible devices and means of transportation. Mayor Mamoru Tsuchino, who pioneered these initiatives, spoke at the conference.

During the three-day meeting, about 200 participants – policy makers, tourism professionals, experts on accessibility and persons with various disabilities – made field visits to various accessible facilities to learn from Takayama’s experiences. They also had opportunities to meet local residents whose awareness of and respect for the needs of persons with disabilities have contributed to the success of making Takayama a barrier-free community for its own citizens and for visitors to the city.

Takayama street scene

A news release on 3 September 2009  reports challenges to a number of leading Auckland organisations to tackle barriers that get in the way for 77,000 disabled Aucklanders.  The report shows that disabled people could play a bigger part in the city if barriers were removed in public spaces, services and buildings, transport and communications, work and study.
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