Abstract
This work aims to analyse and characterise accessibility in tourism —defined as the conditions for people with access needs— and its relationship with tourism performance. Accessibility is a critical concept —to be defined and measured in a rigorous way— that helps shed light on the particularities of the phenomena, considering consumers and producers of tourism. Spain's solid background in accessible tourism portrays the possibility of elaborating different accessible indicators. We propose and identify an exhaustive set of proxy measures for accessibility under the accessible tourism theoretical framework of the tourism travel chain. We also computed an accessibility index using disaggregated data of 152 Spanish tourist sites (National Statistics Institute of Spain), introducing those measures of accessibility as explanatory variables in a model of tourism performance of sun and cultural destinations. Our results show that accessibility seems not to be a determinant in tourist sites' performance. Sun destinations have better tourism performances than cultural ones, having or not accessible conditions. The findings not only reveal the need to improve and consolidate accessible conditions in cultural destinations, but also disseminate and deepen information channels, especially for people with access needs, before choosing a destination.
Highlights
Over the last two decades, tourism researchers have shown particular interest in identifying, systematizing, and measuring variables that determine the competitive position of tourism destinations and their economic performance (Ritchie and Crouch, 2003; Dwyer and Kim, 2003; WEF, 2011)
Descriptive analysis This section gives some descriptive insights about the tourism performance, characterization variables, and accessibility measures in Spain, considering the tourism destination typology (Table 4)
Existing literature has studied issues regarding tourism accessibility for a while, one step ahead of this paper is to enhance the existing theory regarding the relationship between accessibility constraints for people with access needs, the accessible tourism travel chain, and its impact on the tourism performance of destinations
Summary
Over the last two decades, tourism researchers have shown particular interest in identifying, systematizing, and measuring variables that determine the competitive position of tourism destinations and their economic performance (Ritchie and Crouch, 2003; Dwyer and Kim, 2003; WEF, 2011). Accessibility is becoming an important strategic factor within the tourism industry (Darcy & Dickson, 2009; Domínguez Vila et al, 2015; European Commission, 2014; Fernández Alles and Moral-Moral, 2011; Hernandez-Galán, 2017) and a reality that city governments have to face in designing fully inclusive cities, services, spaces, and information (Kiss et al, 2015) In this sense, accessibility is understood as a condition which enables people with disability to live and participate in their daily life without barriers (UN, 2006; Darcy & Dickson, 2009), and a way to contribute with some of the Sustainable Development Goals —reduce inequality within and among countries, and make cities inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable (UN, 2015). It is considered a pillar of smart destination models (Segittur, 2015; Ivars-Baidal et al, 2021) and holds a place in the measurement of competitiveness (Domínguez Vila et al, 2015; Porto et al, 2019) and, into the tourism performance of destinations
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
