Athena na cestách

On the round table in Prague, the ATHENA project, which focuses on accessible tourism, pointed out the necessity to incorporate accessible tourism principles into all fields connected to travelling within the Czech Republic. The project thus ended its two-year long operation and published the first Czech handbook on barrier-free travelling constituting the cornerstone of good examples compendium to inspire Czech managers of tourist facilities. According to the findings of the ATHENA project, there is still a long way to go within the field of promotion and availability of accessible tourism in the Czech Republic.Apart from the lack of facilities and routes adjusted for the travelling of people with specific needs, bad information access is the biggest problem. So far, there is no unified methodology for accessibility assessment of tourist facilities and places of interest. “Accessibility assessment is therefore more or less subjective and disabled people cannot rely on such information. It is necessary to create statewide standards and to prevent the publishing of a large amount of new materials within which accessibility is not a constant concept,” pointed out Jarmila Šagátová, manager of the ATHENA project.

According to the round table participants, among whom you may find the representatives of the Ministry for Regional Development of the Czech Republic, CzechTourism and Association of Czech Travel Agents, it is also important to use unified symbols and pictographs. “We have the experience that a hotel uses the well-known pictograms for wheelchair users, but in reality only its restaurant is barrier-free and not the rooms. And it is certainly not equipped to accommodate those with visual impairment,” noted Mrs Šagátová. The experience of the guest of the round table shows that, for example, Austria and Germany use a transparent system of understandable pictograms suitable for our conditions as well. She also added, that: “It is however necessary to ensure these are publicly available graphical patterns not burdened by copyright issues. That is the only way to offer and disperse generally used symbols and pictograms.”

To incorporate accessible tourism into Czech tourism as a whole, we can use foreign successful examples as inspiration. In countries such as Germany, Italy and Spain the experience shows that isolated barrier removal is not effective and long-term projects aiming at complex accessibility of the whole destination for disabled people, senior citizens and families with children prove successful. At the same time, the cooperation of all subjects linked to tourism in the given region is necessary – local authorities, education facilities, carriers and managers themselves have to be involved. The given destination gains competitive advantage thanks to accessibility and is used throughout the year and not only during a particular season.

“A complex barrier removal is then profitable not only for the persons with disabilities, but to all stakeholders – managers of tourist services and services connected to tourism, for example transport. To reach such a condition, however, a planning and organization procedure is needed in order to help the given destination. Planning and organization should be carried out mainly by the public management using the tools of the central civil service and the EU programmes,” noted Jiří Vencl, Director of the Regional Projects Department of the Czech National Disability Council.
Such activities develop at a slow pace in the Czech Republic and it is mainly thanks to individual initiatives. Some projects are also supported by the Ministry for Regional Development. “In the past years, destinations eligible for promotion within the framework of sustainable development were supported. These include often completely unknown and beautiful localities such as Tichá Orlice, Polabí or the Bata Canal,” stated Ing. Rostislav Hošek, the Tourism Department, Ministry for Regional Development of the Czech Republic.

Nevertheless, these activities are not yet supported by a unified system that would provide a statewide platform for all of them. An example of the successful Internet portal KUDY Z NUDY (Tips for Trips) of the Czech agency for support of tourism - CzechTourism - can be given here, as it is lacking a specialized section of disabled persons. Partial information on the possibilities of accessible tourism can now be found only within isolated web pages. There is no common website in the Czech Republic that can provide people with specific needs with any information on touristic possibilities. “This problem could be solved by CzechTourism creating a specific section within its website that would contain all available information on barrier-free travel in the Czech Republic,” agreed the participants of the meeting. According to them, it is also important that operational programmes of the EU address the issue of accessibility in greater specificity.

Education also plays a key role in the amelioration of the situation. For instance, the Czech National Disability Council discovered that the curriculum of secondary schools focused on services completely lack preparation of students for communication with disabled people. However, this does not concern only specifically focused branches of study. Only a few citizens do know how to communicate with people with specific needs.

The main objective of the project ATHENA that is financed by the European Social Fund by means of the Operational Programme Human Resources and Development, and by the state budget of the Czech Republic, is to support the development of human resources and employment in the sphere of accessible tourism in the Czech Republic applying the experience and inspiration from other EU-member countries. Its activities focus mainly on the increase of awareness and understanding of this issue by employers in the tourist industry, bodies of state administration and educational institutions, as well as by disabled persons, non-profit organizations associating with or employing such persons and by the general public. The project which ends in May 2011 is operating mainly in the Moravian-Silesian Region, Hradec Kralove Region, South Bohemian Region and the capital city of Prague. For more information on the project and its outputs, please visit www.project-athena.cz