시각장애인의 관광 경험에 대한 현상학적 연구

Abstract

This study focuses on the tourism experience of people with visual impairments, which is further marginalized from tourism research in people with disabilities, in order to understand whether people with visual impairments have a need and want, as well as how to enjoy travel. Using a phenomenological approach, this paper investigates the structure and comprehension of the meaning of their travel experiences. Individual interviews, participant observation, and a literature review were used to generate the final 23 themes and ten essential themes, which were based on van Manen's four existential themes (lived body, lived space, lived relation, and lived time). Despite the fact that people with visual impairments are invisible, they have formed a tourism experience by imaging the place and object through other body sensory organs such as smell, touch, and hearing, and tourism has become a very important link for the blind to expand their radius of life and meet their new self and world. Tourism is essential in broadening their life radius and space, as well as providing a path to meet a new self and the world. The results also showed that congenital visual impairment perceived the threshold of travel more strongly than acquired visual impairment. They can, however, perceive travel satisfaction, value, and positive effects more than anyone else, increasing self-independence and well-being. The findings of the study presented the academic significance of the tourism experience for individuals with visual impairments, which has been excluded from tourism research, as well as the fundamental rights of tourism for all and the implications for achieving tourism justice.