Fonte: Journal of Tourism & Development; v. 3, n. 21/22 (2014); 383-396
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Resumo: The emerging need to adapt tourism destinations to the special needs of people with reduced mobility is increasingly clear. However, the awareness of various tourism stakeholders on this new need, which demands for concrete and effective responses, is still at an early stage, and lacks strategies and development programs to meet the needs of this market segment. This article, thus, analyzes the different levels of accessibility in the city of Aveiro. It aims to verify what the main barriers are, as well as identify whether the stakeholders responsible for the promotion of the destination are already aware of the need to create favorable conditions to accessible tourism. The methodology used for the collection of primary data consisted of semi-structured interviews to several stakeholders in the city, and the collected information was analyzed using the method of content analysis. Results show that organizations are still characterized by the existence of a very low level of accessibility, which, coupled with other factors, such as lack of knowledge about this market segment, place the city of Aveiro at the first step of the evolutionary phases of an accessible destination – the awareness stage.
