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This paper aims to explore the place of disabled guests in the new world of hotel and holiday accommodation shaped by the sharing economy.

The paper uses Levitas’s (2013) Utopia as Method as a methodological tool to develop the hypothetical future scenarios, which are used to explore the place of disabled guests in peer-to-peer holiday accommodation.

Analysis of the hypothetical scenarios suggests that without state intervention, the place of disabled guests in both traditional hotels and peer-to-peer holiday accommodation is far from secure.

This is a new area and the authors’ discussion is therefore tentative in its intent.

Planners and policymakers should consult with, and take account of, the needs of disabled people and other socially excluded groups when regulating shared economy enterprises. It may be helpful to put in place broader legislation for social inclusion rather than regulate peer-to-peer platforms. Any recourse to markets as a means of resolving access issues needs also to acknowledge the limited power of socially excluded groups within both traditional and sharing economy markets.

The hypothetical scenarios discussed within this paper offer planners, policymakers and tourism stakeholders opportunities to think through the access and inclusion needs of disabled guests in the shared economy sector.

The paper extends discussion of hospitality and disability access to include shared economy approaches and the place of disabled guests in the new world of holiday accommodation shaped by the sharing economy.

The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of employees’ different disability types on lodging guests’ perceptions of service quality delivery and stereotyping. The study also explores the influence of consumer characteristics (i.e. gender, education, religiosity, generational identity and relationship to a person with a disability) on service delivery quality perceptions and stereotyping.

Using different types of disabilities, the study uses a controlled experiment, followed by a survey, to evaluate consumers’ perception of service quality delivery of a hotel front office staff member.

The results suggest that there are no significant differences in the perceptions of service quality delivery and stereotyping for service employees with disabilities with the exception of employees with a visual impairment. The study found that participants, who had a close friend or family member with a disability, expressed less stereotyping than those who did not have a close friend or family member with a disability.

Real service encounters can be used where participants might be more involved in the service process than in a controlled experiment setting.

The findings provide support to human resource management in strategically placing people with disabilities into front-line positions because they satisfactorily represent the image of the company and guests consider their service professional and reliable.

The study’s findings support that employers should tap into the under-utilized workforce of people with disabilities and avoid pre-existing stereotyping.

A major concern of hospitality companies making employment decisions about hiring people with disabilities is guests’ attitude. This is the first study in hospitality that examines service quality delivery of employees with different types of disability serve guests.

This research is about the evaluation of organizational risks in the hospitality sector, using the experience of a guest with visual impairments. The objectives of this research are to (1) identify if the previous expectations of a guest with visual impairments trip will be exceeded in the final; (2) classify organizational risks in the hotel sector; (3) verify if there are direct impacts on the travellers' future behaviour, such as destination recommendation and intention to return to the destination. Despite of the fact that organizational risks are composed by transport, hospitality and tourism attractions (tourism players can jeopardize the success of a travel experience), this research will only focus on the hospitality sector. To assure the achievement of the referred objectives, a case study will be used based on the analysis of the experience of a Portuguese guest with disabilities, who traveled alone, around Europe, with a guide dog. His expectations, constraints and risks will be analysed through a deep-depth interview, in which questions are organized from the literature review. Finally, it is expected that this exploratory research helps to find new avenues for the study of organizational risks, more precisely, hospitality risks for disabled people.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the barriers identified by people with disabilities in visiting casinos.

Face-to-face interviews were conducted with 12 people with disabilities recruited from the investigator's clinical and community networks and personal referrals, and 18 casino supervisors and dealers who attended a casino diploma course offered by a university. The data were subjected to thematic content analysis.

The results indicated that customers with disabilities faced physical, human and financial barriers during their visit to casinos. The six barriers that were commonly identified by all participants included: the physical barriers in game playing; insufficient facilities and accessibility; insufficient space; entrance blockage; poor staff service; and insufficient information and communication. There were two other barriers reported only by the participants with disabilities – social exclusion and financial barriers. Differences in comparison to the barriers that this market segment had encountered in other tourism contexts are also discussed.

The sample is limited to Macao participants and the sample size is small.

This study offers recommendations for casino operators and government authorities with regard to specific physical, financial and interpersonal means to alleviate apparent difficulties faced by people with disabilities when visiting a casino.

This study fills the research void in the literature regarding the barriers encountered by people with disabilities in visiting a casino. It also broadcasts the genuine voice of this market segment.

Application of technology and meeting accessibility requirements of guests are two essential areas to consider and improve in order to facilitate, ameliorate and accelerate the management of hospitality services furnished by hotels. These two trends carry great importance for competitivity of hotels' services and sustainability of tourism industry. They are two distinguishing characteristics that build a positive perception of hotels' image among its rivals.

This chapter aims to reflect the current level of conformance of the hotels' services to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for tourism, specifically, SDG 11 related to accessibility and SDGs 9, 12 and 13 related to technology. A qualitative research is conducted to find out the commitment and awareness levels of the hotel staff at managerial positions to the accessibility and technology requirements in line with the mentioned SDGs. The representatives of city centre hotels of İzmir, Turkey with three, four and five stars and boutique hotels categories are chosen as the target population. The results obtained via content analysis signal that the extent of conformity of hotels to technology and accessibility requirements in line with the adoption of the related SDGs depend on the creation of practical solutions on the educational, legal and managerial perspectives. The chapter contributes to academic literature in tourism management and brings suggestions for tourism practitioners to adapt and improve their services to meet the standards and requirements of SDGs related to accessibility and adoption of technology in hospitality services.

The concept expressed by the phrase ‘accessible tourism’ reflects a case of which there is a lot of talk through the means of communication and through which it is possible to promote a theme that must be at the heart of individual subjects, or the accessibility to the use of public transport and mobility, catering and leisure, so it is a concept that aims to encourage a connection between the various services to make them truly usable for all those people who have diverse needs: children, the elderly, mothers with strollers, people with disabilities who move in a wheelchair or who have difficulty walking, people who have limitations in the upper and/or lower limbs, people who do not see and/or do not hear, who have allergies or intolerances to environments or food. Tourism is, therefore, inclusive. In any case, the word accessibility is configured as an ideal towards which, in order to achieve equality of rights and duties, an equality allows the individual to participate in social life as a whole. Therefore, we must not limit the aforementioned concept, only in relation to tourism, but we must consider it in a broader sense, for example, the World Health Organization (WHO) defines it as the ‘possibility of accessing the benefits that everyday life can offer, without encountering architectural barriers’.

The tourism sector, first of all, is that sector that has felt the need to pay attention to this issue. In particular, the tourism sector sees on the one hand the tourist offer that is proposed by the accommodation businesses, and on the other, the demand characterized by the need to satisfy ever more varied needs.

Accessibility, from this point of view, is configured as the most important feature that the tourist offer must have because it allows to bring the demand closer to the offer, managing to satisfy all the needs inherent in the characteristics of the various subjects. The characteristics that the tourism sector must possess in order to be able to speak of accessibility are as follows: firstly, this important word contains many meanings. It is customary to consider the following aspects in order to take into consideration the concept of accessibility: architectural barriers, sources of danger and sources of fatigue. The presence of these elements makes accessible tourism incomplete because it cannot satisfy the users of these services.

Very often, in fact, institutions and ministries have framed within the concept of accessibility all those people in wheelchairs or those paraplegic subjects, as well as all those people with reduced motor skills.

It is therefore necessary to be able to frame the users of accessible tourism and in this wake to propose accessible transport, viable accommodation facilities, but also proposals and programs with itineraries that are once again accessible. In any case, the audience of recipients of accessible tourism cannot be framed in a certain and definitive way, since people with reduced mobility or to whom the offer of accessible structures and services is extended may concern not only subjects with different types of disabilities such as problems of motor, sensory, cognitive or health type but also people who have food-type difficulties such as, for example, people with food allergies or intolerances.

Tourist accessibility is, however, a problem that occurs in every situation of everyday life. The solution to solve the problem of accessibility must be implemented consistently and gradually: a shared awareness of the creation of a built, urban and building space is needed, as well as consultation at all legislative levels in order to reach a clear and efficient legislation.

Making every guest feel like an active protagonist of their tourist experience must be the goal for all those who care about the well-being and satisfaction of all their guests.

BeingBeing able to offer accessible hospitality is an indicator of not only efficiency and professionalism but also great attention to the quality of the service, also in the face of specific requests from guests with disabilities. It means being able to be highly competitive and enjoy an advantage that allows you to stand out.

Tourism companies can insert important ethical values within their strategic business vision by investing in a social business.

What are the advantages that accessible hospitality can offer to a hotel? The expansion of the market through: 1) the increase in seasonality; 2) the increase in turnover; and 3) customer loyalty.

To achieve these advantages, however, it is necessary to adopt strategies.

Training is the most powerful tool through which those who govern the company can transfer the philosophy and know-how of industry experts on accessible hospitality directly to their collaborators, both in positions of responsibility and coordination and merely executive personnel – skills necessary to set up an organized structure that aims at the best quality of its services and therefore at the satisfaction of its guests.

This exploratory study aims to investigate consumers' perceptions, attitudes, and purchase intention for restaurants that employ a significant amount of service staff with disabilities. The influences of consumers' characteristics and dining occasions on purchase intention were also examined.

The authors employed a single-factor (dining occasion) experimental design. A convenient sample was used and a total of 192 consumers participated in this study.

Consumers demonstrated a moderately positive purchase intention for a restaurant that employs a significant amount of service staff with disabilities; however, the purchase intention varied by dining occasions. The likelihood of choosing this type of restaurant was higher in a family/friends occasion than in business or romantic occasions.

This study employed a convenient sample and the findings might be limited to the casual dining restaurant context. Future research should examine the relationship between purchase intention and perceived social responsibility, restaurant image, or specific disabilities.

This study suggests that hiring a significant amount of service staff with disabilities might be a better strategy for restaurants that target family/friends gatherings. Meanwhile, managers need to be more strategic when they assign employees with disabilities to serve guests who are in a business or romantic dining situation.

This is the first study that empirically investigates consumers' perspectives on restaurant service staff with disabilities in the USA.

This exploratory study aims to focus on the challenges arising from the interactions between wheelchair users, individuals using crutches and blind people with the hotel environment as well as on the efforts to overcome these challenges.

The sample was gathered through a snowballing technique. The study utilizes in‐depth semi‐structured interviews of 45 participants: 20 used wheelchairs; ten were dependent on crutches; and 15 were blind. The data were subject to thematic content analysis.

Interpreted by the social model of disability, the results suggest that the challenges participants confront derive from the physical design of the environment as well as staff behaviors. Differences were found between the hotel experiences of people with various types of disabilities.

The sample was limited to Israeli participants.

The paper offers recommendations for hotel management with regard to specific physical as well as interpersonal means to alleviate apparent difficulties faced by people with disabilities in their hotel experiences.

This study broadcasts the genuine voice of people with disabilities. The findings are of special relevance to hospitality researchers, educators, executives, and hotel staff.

The purpose of this paper is to report on the research carried out in Québec as part of a master’s degree for the IÉSEG School of Management on behalf of Kéroul, an organization whose mission is to make tourism and culture accessible to people with disabilities. Established over 30 years ago and active largely in Québec, Kéroul has observed a lingering reluctance on the part of tourism industry operators to meeting the needs of disabled visitors. In the research, we set out to answer the following question: how can Kéroul encourage tourism establishments to develop accessibility? In light of the hotel industry’s key role in tourism, exploratory research was conducted with 30 Québec hotel managers through extensive individual interviews.

The exploratory research took the form of in-depth interviews with hotel managers. The sample was selected after conferring with Kéroul and a Québec hotel association. As a first step, a jointly written letter was sent to managers who were association members, inviting them to be interviewed.

Some respondents showed an interest in accessibility, seen as a means of attracting group bookings; others confirmed that accessible rooms rented well to guests from all categories. Nonetheless, most were skeptical about the economic value of the disabled market. They were also poorly informed about this type of clientele, the concept of accessibility and the facilities “barrier-free” tourism requires.

Until now, the literature on accessible tourism has generally accentuated the needs of disabled consumers and analyzed their behavior with regard to tourism. Arguments to demonstrate the market potential of tourists with disabilities have ensued. The need to meet this demand was expressed while highlighting the low degree of consideration given to the disabled market by tourism professionals at present. However, few publications treat accessibility as a viable business opportunity. The study reveals the concerns and views of tourism industry professionals vis-à-vis accessibility and is all the more relevant, given the current context in Québec.

Socially responsible innovative behaviour should reduce the incidence of one-sidedness in the behaviour of persons employed or active in tourism organizations. People with disabilities are often poorly integrated, even in the advanced societies. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

With a requisitely holistic approach in dialectical systems theory and an overview of relevant literature, the common characteristics of tourists with disabilities are briefly described. A dialectical systemic analysis was used to determine whether people with disabilities want to travel and what their requirements are. A questionnaire was used to identify their recent travelling experiences; tourism organizations were interviewed about their experiences, too. A model of a travel agency, specialized for people with disabilities, is presented.

The usual approach to people with special needs is too one-sided. A more requisitely holistic approach to understanding their needs in tourism, based on existing literature and an empirical analysis, is presented. A more innovative management of tourism organizations is proposed, increasing social responsibility (SR).

The authors contribute to the integration of people with disabilities in society, focusing on innovation in the management of tourism organizations.

This new, more systemic and socially responsible innovative management in tourism is widely applicable. Tourists with disabilities, their family members, and their travelling companions could become more included in tourist activities and represent a potentially significant share of the market. A requisitely holistic approach can provide advantages for tourists with disabilities and tourism organizations.

The concepts were not found in available literature neither is the selection of viewpoints of dialectical systems thinking and SR in tourism. They support understanding, designing and managing activities in tourism for people with various limitations or specific needs.