The University of Technology, Sydney worked with Tourism New South Wales on a collaborative exercise to undertake the study. The intention to undertake the study was generated by exposure to the World Assembly of Disabled Peoplesâ International, held at Darling Harbour in Sydney in December 1994. A range of access related issues were identified from the World Assembly (DPI 1995; Darcy 1995). However, in reviewing the literature it was found that there was no pre-existing statistical data on the tourism patterns and experiences of Australian or New South Wales residents with a disability that could provide a qualitative and quantitative foundation for further consideration or address of access related issues. Aims and Objectives The aim of the study was to investigate the: Tourism patterns and experiences of New South Wales people with a physical disability The objectives of the study were to determine the: ⢠Domestic tourism patterns; ⢠International tourism patterns; ⢠Day trip patterns; ⢠Satisfaction with travel, needs and constraints to travel; and ⢠Demographic profile of New South Wales people with a physical disability. The overall purpose was to provide the tourism industry and Government with the quantitative information necessary to make informed decisions about how to address the tourism needs of people with a physical disability. To this end, the quantitative data is complemented through the documentation of the lived tourism experiences of people with a physical disability. This provides a greater qualitative understanding of the constraints that face people with a physical disability.

© 2018 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group Increasing market opportunities have been identified for accessible tourism as a result of improved quality of life. Disabled tourists tend to be loyal, spend more and enjoy longer stays in their destinations, although their behaviour obviously differs from one country to another. This situation is strongly influenced by the welfare policies that determine the disability model implemented and affect the extent to which disabled people are integrated into day-to-day. Northern European countries are regarded as champions in this respect. When disabled people travel, access to information is important. Information is present throughout the tourism process, not only as a communication and marketing channel, but also as a transmitter of experiences. This study seeks to establish whether the policies and regulations that govern disabled people's access to online tourist information are applied correctly. The official tourism websites of northern European countries were analysed to this end; whereby different patterns were identified regarding their compliance with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. The atypical features of Norway's official tourism website were found to be particularly noteworthy, as were the official tourism websites for Germany and the United Kingdom, two of the countries with the largest market share of accessible tourism.

© 2019, Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature. Various initiatives have been undertaken in recent years to improve the accessibility of tourism in a large number of countries. One of the areas in which work has been done has been the inclusion and accessibility of information for all, especially for people with disabilities and other users with access needs. A focus of this work has been to the digital world, given the increasing relevance of the internet in daily life. This paper aims to determine whether the different nation states are applying appropriate standards, both under their own regulations and under those from United Nations agreements regarding accessibility to online tourism information to foster more sustainable tourism. In the study of official tourism organization website home pages of the countries contained in the World Tourism Organization reports, cluster analysis was used to identify common behaviour patterns. The main result was the need to improve the compatibility and ease of navigation of websites, as well as identifying Japan, Hong Kong and South Korea as countries that can serve as examples of good practice.

© 2018, © 2018 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This paper explores a major initiative where a not-for-profit organisation (NPO), government seed funding and a major private sector telecommunications company developed a smart phone technology platform people with disability and established a social enterprise directly connected to the not-for-profit. The paper's purpose is to answer questions about the ways in which the mobile technology, seen here as assistive technologies, supported the development of disability citizenship and active citizenship. Data were collected through in-depth interviews conducted at three points in the 13-week programme during which participants with disability received customised support for their phone and training in its use, at no cost. Fifteen participants volunteered to take part in the research project, along with their significant other and service provider. Key themes were identified in the preliminary analysis. Exploring these using Ragnedda's ([2017]. The third digital divide: A Weberian approach to digital inequalities. Abingdon: Routledge) three levels of digital divide, Wilson's ([2006]. The information revolution and developing countries. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press) categories of access and Kahn's ([1966]. Neighborhood Information Centers: A study and some proposals. New York: Columbia University School of Social Work) citizenship-oriented typology of information service provision allowed a series of philosophical, ethical and human services management questions to emerge, challenging the optimism with which the digital economy is presented as a solution to issues of inequality. Although the mobile technologies were very successful as assistive technologies for some participants, the findings reinforced the potential for such technologies to further entrench aspects of social exclusion. They also identified ways in which the shift in the role of the NPO to social entrepreneurship, and its relationshi...

To analyze the accessibility of official national tourism organization websites of countries around the world, in order to establish possible common patterns and rankings of those with exemplary practice through to those with the highest number of issues. The purpose for undertaking such an analysis is to provide a quasi-indicator of inclusive organizational practice for online accessibility for both destination managers and their accessible tourism consumers - domestic and overseas people with disability visiting the websites.The official tourism websites of 210 countries included in the latest World Tourism Organization report were analyzed. A website accessibility evaluation tool (website accessible test) was used in the analysis, according to AA and AAA levels of conformance to Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 requirements.Different patterns compliance to Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 were established for the clusters, which were rather similar for both AA and AAA conformance levels. The main issues in the least accessible websites were also identified, mainly focused on the following guidelines: navigable, compatible, adaptability, text alternatives and also referred to other assistive technologies.Once the main issues were established several alternatives are suggested to address them, such as implementing more prescriptive laws and regulations, complying with mandatory benchmark standards and/or having external agencies audit website designs. However, in addition to using benchmark standards, efforts to improve this situation should also be made by programmers, who should also rely on preexistent experiences and develop more dynamic knowledge. This knowledge may include text alternatives for any nontext content; creation of content that can be presented in different ways without losing information; provide ways to help users navigate, find content, determine where they are and navigate websites to maximize compatibility with assistive te...

© 2018 Elsevier Ltd This paper proposes a four-tiered hierarchy to understand better the nature and effects of barriers, constraints and obstacles to travel faced by people with disabilities. Previous studies tended to aggregate barriers into a single group and further, some research associated barriers faced by all tourists as being unique to people with disabilities. The failure to recognise the complex, yet subtle interplay between tourism and different types of barriers results in the tendency to see people with disabilities as a homogeneous group where a one size fits all solution applies. In reality, they are a heterogeneous cohort who face the same types of barriers as everyone, some barriers that are common to all people with disabilities, those that are unique to each disability dimension and specific impairment effects that are individualistic.

This paper provides an objective, systematic and integrated review of the
Western academic literature on adventure tourism to discover the
theoretical foundations and key themes underlying the field by combining
three complementary approaches of bibliometric analysis, content analysis
and a quantitative systematic review. Some 114 publications on adventure
tourism were identified that revealed three broad areas of foci with
adventure tourism research: (1) adventure tourism experience, (2)
destination planning and development, and (3) adventure tourism
operators. Adventure tourism has an intellectual tradition from multiple
disciplines, such as the social psychology of sport and recreation. There is
an under-representation of studies examining non-Western tourists in their
own geographic contexts or non-Western tourists in Western geographic
contexts. Our findings pave ways for developing a more robust framework
and holistic understanding of the adventure tourism field.

© 2018, © 2018 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. Many of the world's iconic ecotourism attractions reside in heterogeneous rural localities (or places). Over time the nature of these settings evolve, which can lead to tourism and other industry sectors (e.g. forestry, mining, agriculture etc.) at different times coming to hold positions of legitimacy in the eyes of local people. Local people will form opinions on the merits of ecotourism development on the basis of an evolving interplay of economic, environmental and social forces. These forces are framed on the basis of a locality's history, as well as on the basis of current conditions. In the present paper the authors will explore the merits of employing Personal Construct Theory based repertory grids as a methodological tool to understand the subjective realities of local people. Drawing on the results an expanding body of scholarship that has used repertory grid methodologies in destination image studies; the authors will offer comment on the merits whereby repertory grids can be taken out of an academic led research setting and used within communities themselves to shed light on the individual perceptions that variously cause support or opposition to ecotourism development.

This paper examines the potential contribution of academics working in the sustainable tourism arena from a relational, practice-based leadership perspective. It argues that these leadership perspectives require a shift in thinking from narrowly defined, instrumental measures of academic impact imposed by performance management and the somewhat heroic ideals of leadership. Instead it outlines how everyday practice that directly influences collaborative agency among multiple tourism stakeholders is able to provide a more useful direction. To illustrate this perspective, it engages in retrospective reflection, drawing on a number of pioneers in tourism scholarship. It specifically examines their praxis of dialogue, stewardship, and critical reflexivity and the ways in which these may serve to inspire future sustainable tourism education and scholarship.

This paper has a twofold focus: to establish a method of assessing the potential social impact of arts and disability projects and to apply this method to ten such projects. It does so by using a newly developed 'ripple' model that conceptualises social impact in terms of the development of active citizenship on the part of all participants over time. The model identifies ten factors (programme activity, welcoming, belonging, programme social values, individual social values, programme networks, individual networks, skills and creativity, programme wider social impact, and individual wider social impact) which evolve through four progressive stages. The original model is empirically adapted for application to arts and disability projects. Qualitative data were collected in the form of interviews, surveys and media reports across ten case studies, each representing a major arts and disability project offering a professional outcome for an external audience. The qualitative data were coded to provide a simple scoring tool for each case. The results support the application of the model in this context. Furthermore, findings indicate three critical conditions which enable projects to generate considerable positive social impact beyond the individual; ensemble in nature; project embeddedness; and networks and partnerships.

This paper discusses the application of the Pacific Asia Travel Association's (PATA) risk and recovery strategy for Nepal following the April/May 2015 earthquake and aftershocks. The impact of the earthquake on tourism to Nepal, the establishment and evolution of PATA's Nepal Rapid Recovery Taskforce and strategic approaches to tourism receovery contained within the report are discussed.
The methodology involved participant observation wth three key players in the receoery process, email interviews f key informants, analysis of secondayry data sources and revews of managment information systems.
Collaborative theory was at the core of PATA's recovery process and prpvided a lens thrugh which to understad the intent, directions and actions undertaken. The application of Nepal's recovery strategy is examined through volunteer tourism which played a central role in Nepal's tourism receovery and accessible tourism as an innovative approach to introducing a new market sector in Nepal. Volunteer and accessible tourism enterprises provided oportunities for these organisations to create their own narratives and to include them in the broader media and marketing aproch towards stimulating toutrism receovery to nepal between 2015 and 2017.

People with disabilities are often the recipients of volunteer services but are rarely considered as a potential volunteer resource, such as in sport events where volunteers are an essential component of major sport event operation and legacy potential. For London's 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games, there was a determined effort by the Organizing Committee to recruit people with disabilities to be Games Makers (i.e., volunteers). This exploratory research investigated 786 London 2012 volunteers who self-identified as having disability or access needs. The research design involved an online questionnaire examining their motivations for volunteering, their experiences, their likelihood to continue volunteering, and their sociodemographic profile. This article contributes to the literature by examining the motivations of people with disability volunteering at a mega-sport event, as this has not been done previously. The factor analysis identified eight components: transactional; altruistic; it's all about the games; volunteering community; rewards; availability; variety; and application. The solution highlighted the duality of human capital-related transactional components where the individual wanted to improve their skills and the altruistic components of giving back and it's all about the games experience. The discussion examined these components in comparison to other mega-event volunteers to examine commonalities and contrasts.

Purpose: The purpose of this article is to examine the use of a mobile technology platform, software customization and technical support services by people with disability. The disability experience is framed through the participants' use of the technology, their social participation. Method: A qualitative and interpretive research design was employed using a three-stage process of observation and semi-structured interviews of people with disability, a significant other and their service provider. Transcripts were analyzed to examine the research questions through the theoretical framework of PHAATE – Policy, Human, Activity, Assistance and Technology and Environment. Results: The analysis revealed three emergent themes: 1. Engagement and activity; 2. Training, support and customization; and 3. Enablers, barriers and attitudes. Conclusions: The findings indicate that for the majority of users, the mobile technology increased the participants' communication and social participation. However, this was not true for all members of the pilot with variations due to disability type, support needs and availability of support services. Most participants, significant others and service providers identified improvements in confidence, security, safety and independence of those involved. Yet, the actions and attitudes of some of the significant others and service providers acted as a constraint to the adoption of the technology.

Implications for Rehabilitation
Customized mobile technology can operate as assistive technology providing a distinct benefit in terms of promoting disability citizenship.

Mobile technology used in conjunction with a supportive call centre can lead to improvements in confidence, safety and independence for people experiencing disability.

Training and support are critical in increasing independent use of mobile technology for people with disability.

The enjoyment, development of skills and empowerment gained through the use of mobile technology fa...

Purpose
This paper aims to contribute to the event legacy discourse by exploring the nexus between event legacy literature and destination competitiveness by focusing on disability sport events or parasport and addressing an identified gap in the research literature.

Design/methodology/approach
This is achieved through conducting a systematic review of disability sport events literature; performing an audit of international disability sport events; developing a typology of disability sport events; and outlining a research agenda drawing upon these previous steps. The typology is then placed in context to the destination competitiveness framework to provide direction for both host organizing committees and tourism destination managers. The research framework reflects the complexity of disability sport events with specific reference to the social impact of disability sport events for destinations.

Findings
Despite calls for increased research into accessible tourism and events, the potential social legacy for communities and destinations from disability sport or parasport events remains absent from most sport, event and tourism literature. The findings and resultant typology from this study provide an interdisciplinary approach to value add to the disability sport event and destination management sectors. The combined understanding of both sectors creates an opportunity to leverage further events through marketing accessibility as a competitive advantage, seizing opportunity for international and national disability events, and the subsequent event accessible tourism and general accessible tourism that improved destination accessibility provides a host city or precinct.

Research limitations/implications
The disability sport event typology and a research agenda that supports future research are outcomes of this research.

Practical implications
These insights are beneficial to both researchers and practitioners interested in leveraging the opportunities from disa...

Framed by a social approach to disability and leisure constraints theory, this paper presents the results of a national study examining the constraints to sport participation for people with disability. Responses were obtained from a multi-platform questionnaire survey capturing data on constraints to participation, dimensions of disability, and level of support needs. The Exploratory Factor Analysis identified five structural together with intrapersonal and interpersonal constraint factors. While intrapersonal and interpersonal considerations were found to constrain sport participation and nonparticipation, the five structural factors had the most significant constraining impact on sport participation. The findings showed that disability type and level of support needs explain significant variations in constraints to participation and nonparticipation. When the 2-Way MANOVA included type of disability and level of support needs as contingent independent variables, the level of support needs was the most significant indicator of the likelihood of having constraints to participation or nonparticipation

© 2017 Elsevier Ltd This exploratory paper examines the agenda-setting and framing role of news media in the ongoing development of the Draft Sydney Royal Botanic Gardens and Domain Trust Master Plan. The paper will argue that the publication of the Masterplan and ensuing public commentary has drawn into stark focus future challenges in juxtaposing the frames of public use, commercial tourism and scientific/cultural values in the sustainable management of protected areas. Agenda setting and framing theory provides the theoretical foundation for the paper. Guided by critical discourse analysis, the analysis of the paper is supported through the use of Leximancer and Gephi software for visually illustrating the relationship between different framing perspectives. This paper contributes to a fresh understanding of the complex nature of the sustainable management of protected areas in urban spaces.

© 2017 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. Ethnic tourism is a catalyst for economic and sociocultural development in many countries. However, ethnic tourism development has given rise to many challenges associated with the sustainable development of ethnic regions within different cultural contexts. This paper addresses the social aspect of sustainable ethnic tourism through comparative case studies of two ethnic Hakka tourism destinations, Nanyuan and Sujiawei villages in Heyuan, Guangdong Province, China. The comparative case-study research design included in-depth interviews, document analysis and a household study in each case-study village. The comparative case study provides insights into factors contributing to socially sustainable ethnic tourism in China, including levels of community involvement, control of the tourism 'product', the benefits accruing to the ethnic community, perceived inconveniences/externalities and authenticity considerations. This study contributes to a better understanding of socially sustainable ethnic tourism in a Chinese context, and has practical implications for ethnic tourism destination marketing, management and policy-making.

This paper examines the service dimensions required to be inclusive of people with access needs within a major-sport event context. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities seeks to counter disability discrimination and enable citizenship rights of people with disabilities, including access to goods and services, across all dimensions of social participation including major-sport events (e.g. Olympic and Paralympic Games, world cups in football, cricket and rugby union). Providing for people with disability and access needs is also an emerging tourism focus with initiatives addressing accessible tourism included in the World Tourism Organizations mission and recent strategic destination plans. To enhance the understanding of service delivery for an accessible tourism market in a major-sport event context, a case study of the Vancouver Fan Zone for the FIFA Womens World Cup Canada, 2015 TM is analyzed through the lens of transformative services. From this analysis future research directions are identified to benefit those with access needs who wish to participate in major-sport events.

Natural data on the Australian Human Rights Commission's website
outlining the complaint cases generated from Disability Discrimination
Act, 1992 (DDA) were used to examine the social construction of
disability employment discrimination. Using a social model and human
rights citizenship lens, some 987 complaint cases were analysed to
assess the prevalence of disability discrimination in employment, and
its relationship to the types of disability, gender, entity undertaking
the actions and organisational context. Of all complaint cases across
the Australian Human Rights Commission's operations, by far the
largest proportion involves disability discrimination. Within the
disability discrimination complaint cases, employment makes up
the greatest proportion of these cases. In examining the patterns of
discrimination seven major themes emerged involving: distinctive
patterns across disability type; access to premises; human resource
mismanagement; selection of new employees; integration of assistive
technology; perception of cost of disability inclusions; and inflexible
organisational workplace practices. The discussion examines the
underlying reasons for the emergent themes where employers
misunderstood key legal concepts that underpin the DDA including:
unjustifiable hardship; inherent requirements; reasonable adjustment;
direct; and indirect discrimination. The paper concludes by discussing
the implications of the findings as a way of understanding the social
construction of disability discrimination in employment to signal ways
to better develop inclusive organisational practice.

© 2015 Cognizant Comm. Corp. Investment in mega-sport events is frequently justified on the basis that there are infrastructure and social legacies that remain after the event. This research explores the claims of a social legacy through a pre-and post-Games survey of volunteers at the Sydney World Masters Games 2009 (SWMG). Through online surveys the research explores pre-and post-volunteer motivations, postevent volunteering intentions before the Games and actual volunteer behavior after the Games. The pre-Games survey supports previous research that a desire to be involved in the event motivates people to volunteer. However, the postevent expression of motivations shifted to a more altruistic focus. The postevent volunteering intentions as indicated in the preevent survey would support the claim of a social legacy; however, this was not supported by the postevent measures of volunteering levels. The use of a pre-and postevent survey has highlighted that the timing of measures of motivations can influence responses and one may not depend on preevent intentions as an indicator of postevent behaviors.

Participation in Civil Society Organizations (CSO) draws on and enriches social, cultural, and human capital. Social impacts of such participation as active citizenship are systemic and 'ripple' far beyond the immediate program outputs and outcomes. CSOs and the third sector as a whole must demonstrate and gage the difference they make in the social life of the broader community. This research offers a new approach to conceptualize CSO social impacts through an empirically derived model that accounts for the impacts of active citizenship for individuals, organizations, and the broader community. A conceptual model of systemic social impact is presented as it was developed through an exploratory study of a large Australian CSO using an abductive methodology combining focus groups and a survey. Considering the potential of the model that could account for impacts beyond program outputs and outcomes, we propose several propositions for future testing the conceptual model.

Between 2014 and 2016, Brazil will host a number of large events, where the Olympics of Rio de Janeiro are the most noteworthy. The tourism industry will be one of the beneficiaries. It has established an objective to bring 10 million tourists in 2016, doubling overseas arrivals. This can create many business opportunities for the industry. This paper analyzes this goal by examining two key factors linked
to the Olympics, legacy and new tourism segments, in particular, seniors and accessible tourism.
A study using content analysis of the bibliography about Rio 2016 will be applied to determine the current body of knowledge. Following this, a case study will be drawn upon the Barcelona and Sydney Games to establish the key elements of the legacy and their tourist outcomes. The findings will establish the main factors required to meet Brazil's tourist objectives.

This paper presents the findings of a study that examines the development of social capital within an Australian sporting organisation, Surf Life Saving Australia (SLSA). The study draws on the social capital literature across the not-for-profit sector and specific sport management social capital research. The research design incorporated an interpretive approach with data collected nationally from eight focus groups with key SLSA staff, board members and 'toes in the sand' volunteers. The findings provide fresh insights into the development and understanding of social capital within a sporting organisation. Both bonding and bridging were important social capital outcomes of the organisation's activities, albeit with important implications for antecedents and process. The data presented strong evidence for arguing that within the organisation bonding within the club comes first, which importantly provides a very strong sense of belonging and mutual support for club members, from volunteers through to the board. The strength of bonding provides a powerful base for subsequent bridging capital to the local, regional and national stakeholder communities that are associated with the organisation. Further, social capital develops in both the collective and individual, with leveraging of individual skills contributing to human capital development, which is closely connected to and inseparable from social capital. The paper concludes by discussing the theoretical implications for social capital generally and social capital in a sporting context.

This paper presents the results of a study seeking to examine the experiences of people with intellectual disability in a sporting context. The research design employed an online, interviewer-completed questionnaire in both a standard and an easy English version designed for administration by a third party for those requiring assistance to respond. Questions sought both quantitative responses about levels of participation and qualitative responses about constraints experienced and benefits received from participation. The results of the study show high levels of participation reported by people who are independent or have lower to moderate support needs, whereas people with high to very high support needs had substantially lower levels of participation. Constraints are examined for both those who participate in sport and those who do not. For those who do participate, the benefits were identified as overwhelmingly social in nature, including belonging, companionship and achievement.

Over the last decade a great deal of work has examined major sport event legacies and event leverage. Much of this work has involved Olympic studies and this paper seeks to add to the body of knowledge surrounding major sport event legacies by examining the largely overlooked area of the Paralympic Games. The Paralympic Games are the second largest multisport event after the Olympic Games depending upon which parameters are used and since Sydney 2000 there has been an `operational partnership where bid cities are required to host both Games. Yet, few studies have evaluated the comparative outcomes, legacies and event leverage that Paralympic games have generated. This paper addresses this absence by conducting a thematic analysis of Paralympic legacy research. The thematic analysis used a combination of keywords involving event legacy across 13 major academic databases. Of the 43 articles identified as having Paralympic legacy related content only 13 articles empirically investigated Paralympic legacy. In reviewing the research, it is noted that the bulk of the research has focused on Summer Paralympic Games with little interest in the Winter Paralympic Games. The major findings for legacy-based research include: infrastructure; sport; information education, and awareness; human capital; and managerial changes. However, while these findings may seem congruent with major event legacies frameworks conceptually, an examination of the detailed findings shows that Paralympic legacy research is isomorphic and adds a new component to existing legacy dimensions.

We reside within a global village, with approximately 10% of the worlds population or 650 million people (including about 200 million children) living with some form of disability (United Nations 2011). This has been estimated to rise to 1.2 billion by 2050 (United Nations 2011). The World Health Organization and the United Nations have recognized that people with disability have a right to access services from all areas of citizenship. The purpose of this special issue of Annals of Leisure Research was to seek contributions examining the inclusion and citizenship of people with disability in `cultural life, defined by the United Nations (2006) Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disability (CRPWD) to include recreation, leisure, the arts, sport and tourism. In particular, the issue aimed to: (1) clarify what the terms inclusion and citizenship mean in different cultures; (2) place inclusion to and citizenship of `cultural life across discourses relating to economic, social and environmental contexts that affect people with disabilities participation; and (3) discuss the terms inclusion and citizenship from the ideological frameworks of government, researchers, providers of service or disability advocacy groups

This article presents an investigation of the embodied air travel experiences of people with disability. The study was informed by human rights frameworks, social approaches to disability and critical tourism. The research design included a review of newspaper articles, human rights complaint cases, open-ended responses to a survey on the tourism experiences of people with disabilities and semistructured in-depth interviews. The findings revealed that the air travel practices routinely contravened disability discrimination legislation and identified a series of socially constructed constraints across the air travel chain from the preplanning of trips through to disembarking after a flight.What emerged from these experiences was that the embodied individuals became (dis)embodied at each stage of the air travel chain. The inequitable, inaccessible, undignified and dependent practices resulted in heightened anxiety, increased helplessness and, in some cases, humiliation to which they were not subjected in their everyday lives.

The article sets a context of the United Nations (2006) Convention for the Rights of Persons with Disabilities as an international agreement that in principle guarantees people with disability an equality of experience in all areas of citizenship including the event industry. The remainder of the article provides an understanding of the demographics of the group, the research literature in event specific journals, market arguments examples, and an overview of disability-specific events that the industry may not have previously considered. The article concludes with a call for the events industry to develop a culture of inclusive practice and for academic event researchers to place disability, access, and inclusion on the research agenda.

The last decade has seen an increasing interest in disability, access and tourism. This has culminated in the emergence of a body of work on ``accessible tourism. Disability and access have been the subject of a great deal of government regulation and coordination through building codes, awareness training and state-based tourism marketing authorities and policy engagement. Yet, the supply-side perspective of industry responses to this consumer group has been under researched (Darcy & Pegg, 2011). This study seeks to redress this omission through examining the attitudes and experiences of tourism operators. The area chosen for the study was Queensland, Australia. In-depth interviews were conducted with 32 tourism operators across five major regional tourism locations. The interviews investigated the level of engagement with the consumer group, their motivations for catering for the group and their experiences with the service provision to the group. The results of the study showed that, while the macro policy environment is conducive to having an accessible built environment, transport and service sector, the level of engagement by the tourism industry still involves an ad hoc process of trial and error on the part of individual operators. In comparison with previous decades, tourism operators are now making significant efforts to make their products and services more accessible to people with disabilities. However, most operators in the study noted that there is still a weak demand from the accessible tourism market and low recognition of their existing product offerings.

Individuals strive to attach themselves to social groups that reflect positively on the way they view themselves (Tajfel, 1972, 1982; Tajfel & Turner, 1979). While social categories span a myriad of activities, pursuits and organizations, sport teams provide a pertinent example of social categories from which individuals derive social identity benefits (Cialdini & Richardson, 1980). As a result, social identity theory has been extensively applied to sport consumers as a framework contributing to understanding of identity formation (Fisher & Wakefield, 1998; James, 2001), strength (Wann & Branscombe, 1993, 1995), structure (Heere & James, 2007) and management for sport fans (Cialdini et al., 1976; Cialdini & Richardson, 1980; Snyder, Lassegard, & Ford, 1986).

This paper reports the findings of a qualitative study that investigated the embodied tourist experiences of 40 people who are vision impaired. The study, informed by the concept of "embodied ontology", explored the corporeal and socially constructed experience of tourism. The findings highlighted the benefit of holidays for the participants and de-centred the "visual gaze" in the tourist experience. The quality of the tourist experience related to participants' feelings of inclusion or exclusion in terms of their access to information, experience of wayfinding, travelling with a guide dog, and the knowledge and attitudes of others. It was evident that participants needed to manage their tourist experiences closely and constantly. The paper concludes that the tourism industry and community must understand the multi-sensory nature of the tourist experience if quality accessible experiences are to be available for tourists with vision impairment. Provision of multi-sensory experiences also enhances the experiences of sighted tourists.

This scoping paper examines the complex issue of assessing and understanding community views about the restructuring towards nature-based rural tourism of traditional agriculture and forestry rural economies and their activities that had hitherto shaped local identities. It shows how individual resident perceptions can be included within social impact assessment through the use of psychological methods and discusses the relative merits of using personal construct theory -based repertory grids. Ten repertory grid interviews were completed in Eden, New South Wales, Australia. The findings present both the resulting repertory grids and a more detailed discussion of the interpretation of the grids through two narratives that focus on residents considering what, in their opinion, constitutes a sustainable utilisation of local forest land. The discussion examines how the results of this type of analysis can be used to understand individual residents' decisions to support or reject nature-based tourism proposals in favour of traditional extractive forest-industry sectors. It shows how this assessment system could aid planners in reconciling stakeholder conflict over the ideal usage of public forest land by offering a structured means of giving heterogeneous rural communities a formal voice in tourism-planning processes.

Social impact measures are not widely agreed, nor implemented by third sector organisations. Meso level indicators of social impact are underdeveloped. Financialised methods such as Social Return on Investment can only account for direct outcomes of defined programs and activities. The broader societal impacts of any such activities are undervalued. This paper outlines the findings of a grounded theoretical approach to determining measures of social impact within a large Australian iconic third sector organisation. Several key factors revealed in this study are discussed in regards to their potential for attributing social impact to organisational activities outside of a program specific outcome. Based on these findings the paper concludes that the development of a tool to measure meso level organisational social impact of third sector organisations may be attainable.

The research consistently shows that the constraints to accessible accommodation identified by people with disability are firmly grounded in information provision. Information is the foundation on which people make their travel planning decisions and the provision of detailed and accurate accessible accommodation information is critical to the decision-making process for people with disability. To improve upon this current situation, this paper seeks to make the connection between accessible tourism, consumer needs, supply-side perspectives, government regulation/ coordination, sustainability, accessible accommodation information provision and strategic knowledge management. First, demand research is examined to understand the specific constraints identified by consumers with disability and the specific accommodation criteria they seek when planning their trips. Second, the paper presents a summary of the supply-side research that presents the industry perspective on the consumer group and their accessible accommodation stock. Third, as with any tourism market development government regulation and coordination have very important roles to play brokering an industry-wide approach to accessible tourism. While tourism has been predominantly a market-driven sector with government support for infrastructure and marketing, an avenue to improve accessible accommodation information provision can be fostered through their coordination role to offer a more sustainable approach for consumers and the supply sector while progressing human rights outcomes. The paper concludes by presenting a case study of an Accessible Accommodation Assessment Template as a foundation to information provision on which to base a strategic knowledge management framework.

The tourism sector globally has become increasingly mindful of how an ageing population is reshaping service provision forms and offerings. This being particularly true of accommodation operations where there is a now a growing recognition of the commercial value for providing market groups with exceptional service. With this in mind, this study sought to ascertain the perceptions of managers in the accommodation sector towards disability service provision with a view to identifying any current service gaps or failings. An inductive, qualitative approach was used with the data collection phase incorporating a series of one on one interviews and a focus group. The in-depth interviews were conducted with 10 managers of hotels deemed to have accessible rooms that complied with the relevant building codes and standards. A focus group comprised 22 managers of hotels located in the Sydney central business district, Australia. Study findings revealed five key themes that had not been previously discussed in the literature. They were: inclusive attitudinal approach; safety; the responsibility of people with a disability to communicate their needs to the hotel; perceptions of accessible rooms by the general public; and operational processes. Related themes that emerged from the data analysis that had previously been aligned with the literature included: legislative responsibility, policy and building codes; disability as a market segment; staff awareness/training; and language, marketing, and promotion information. Implications with respect to management of accessible rooms in the accommodation sector are outlined and further areas of research are proposed.

Motives to attend sport and form identification with sporting teams attract considerable attention in the literature. Previous research has determined that vicarious achievement is a key construct leading to attendance and identification. Conceptual and theoretical development has focused on established sport teams, and has not been inclusive of the formation of identification in a new team context. New sport teams do not have a history of achievement or well established traditions through which to attract fans, thus the constructs that influence the formation of identification with new sport teams may be conceivably different. In this study a mixed-method approach was used to explore key themes leading to the formation of new team identification with a new football team in Australia. Findings illustrated that vicarious achievement is less relevant in a new team, new league context. New team identification was characterized by a strong desire to support the sport of football in an Australian league. The home city of members and the match day occasion were also important themes in the formation of new team identification.

This paper highlights that tourism, due to the fact it is a multi-faceted activity and by implication its management has similar multiple contexts, often leads to the exclusion of many who are part of that tourism context. One area that has been left on the fringes of tourism is how contemporary tourism management has othered those regarded as being removed from the neoliberal business foundation of tourism. One such group is the host communities in developing countries. The failure to involve and engage with host communities and develop collaboration in the process of planning and management for tourism is and has in the past been detrimental to the sustainability of tourism. In many cases, host communities have been ignored by the industry, with few or no mechanisms or processes put in place to enable them to participate in the management of tourism. This paper presents an overview of how this engagement of host communities can expand the market for tourism and lead to more satisfying visitor experiences, enhance the sustainability of these experiences and, thus, be considered good management practice within the industry.

This paper explores the concept of accessible tourism and its links with triple-bottomline (TBL) sustainability. Accessible tourism is reviewed through some of its central features including dimensions of access, universal design and the nexus between ageing and disability. The TBL is then examined to better understand the financial, environmental and social considerations that arise from accessible tourism. The research design used in this explorative research incorporated a case study approach, where a business case study instrument was developed. Methods included a Delphi group, review of management information systems, in-depth interviews with key informants, observation and participant observation. The study results revealed that rather than accessible tourism being a single construct, it forms one critical dimension of a series of interrelated, overlapping and interdependent business arrangements that extend beyond the business entity through a series of social networks within the destination region. It is argued that to properly satisfy the accessible tourism market, a more sophisticated understanding of accessible destination experiences is needed by tourism operators. The case study illustrates the considerable size and multi-niche markets served by accessible tourism destinations, the good fit between accessible tourism and TBL sustainable tourism, and the need for further research.

Studies have identified constraints with the way that accessible accommodation information is documented and marketed. Yet, no research has investigated the criteria that people with disabilities determine as 'important' to selecting accommodation and their preference for presenting this information. This paper presents the results of a survey (n = 566) to determine the relative importance of room selection criteria through the development of a 55-item Hotel Accessibility Scale. Four information formats were then presented to ascertain the preferences of the respondents. The results suggest that while sociodemographic variables offered some insight into criteria selection, the most significant explanation for criteria selection and information preferences were the dimensions of disability and level of support needs. The preferred format of accessible accommodation information provision was based on a combination of textual, floorplan and digital photography. The management implications suggest that detailed information provision using this format has benefits for accommodation stock yield and social sustainability.

Sport-development programmes provide opportunities for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander youth to excel and overcome social inequities. In Australia, all levels of government have identified sport-development programmes in their policy responses as a method to redress inequity amongst this population. Yet, a recent report has shown that national sport organisations have been more reactive in establishing anti-discrimination policy and less proactive in cultivating culturally inclusive programmes and meaningful sporting experiences (Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, 2007). At the same time, neo-liberal approaches to policy in Australia have seen the emphasis on grassroots community sport-development shift to third-sector organisations. However, little research has examined how the third-sector organisations operate with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities and how culturally inclusive the programmes they deliver are for the communities in which they operate. Three case studies with the objectives of analysing organisational approaches to: structure and governance; sport-development philosophies; and cultural inclusiveness of the programmes, are presented here. The case studies were informed by the cultural lens of Ganma, a theory belonging to the Yolngu community of Yirrkala (Marika, Ngurruwutthun,&White, 1992). The case study method included in-depth interviews with programme leaders, reviews of management information systems and programme observation. The findings provided evidence of the importance of culturally inclusive programmes through governance and an informal lived approach to philosophy andculture.

Diversity involves coming to terms with alterity (otherness) and negotiating inclusion (togetherness). That goal is more likely, philosopher Emmanuel Levinas argues, when people usually separated socially culturally, politically, economically geographically are brought together in consensual face-to-face contact and in social contexts where equitable interpersonal co-operation and group cohesion are fostered (Burggraeve, 2002, 2008). Such a quest for consensus about diversity and mutuality, as opposed to discordance through disdain for difference (Grillo, 2007), is a challenge (but also an opportunity) in a range of normative environments, such as business, education and sport (Kostogriz & Doecke, 2007; Lim, 2007; Sykes, 2006). In an overarching sense, the management of diversity and the policies that underpin mutuality are arguably contributions to cosmopolitanism, which Vertovec and Cohen (2002, p. 4) argue incorporates `variously complex repertoires of allegiance, identity and interest. They conclude that cosmopolitanism, as an applied philosophical position, `seems to offer a mode of managing cultural and political multiplicities (2002, p. 4).

This article examines the concept of a whole-of-life approach to tourism through presenting the case for `accessible tourism. The importance of this approach is that it has been estimated that 30% of a population will have access requirements at any point in time, and most people will have a disability at some stage during their life. This article presents the case for proactively developing a strategic accessible tourism approach by presenting a brief background to the area. First, the article outlines the relationship between access, disability, ageing and tourism. Second, it reviews the development of easy access markets and accessible tourism, and places these in context to universal design. Third, the article overviews pertinent legislation that shapes the accessible tourism environment in Australia. Fourth, accessible environments are placed within context to destination management and accessible destination experiences. The article concludes by presenting four contemporary Australian examples of accessible destination experiences within broader destination management approaches.

Soccer in Australia underwent a series of changes following a Federal Government inquiry into its future. A report into the Structure, Governance and Management of Soccer in Australia (2003) recommended a process of structural change, aimed at repositioning and re-branding soccer as association football. The restructure yielded the replacement of the National Soccer League with the A-League, five new Australian teams and a concerted attempt to separate soccer from its ethnic ties in the antipodes. This paper examines member identification in relation to a specific A-League clubâs members. Using the Sports Spectator Identity Scale (Wann & Branscombe, 1993) to measure sport fan identity in a new team context, a survey of club members of Sydney FC (n = 510), was undertaken. Survey findings indicated that members of Sydney FC reported relatively strong team identification in the first year of the new competition, with some nuanced differences based on age and income. The SSIS demonstrated a good level of fit in relation to a new sports team, although it is evident that rivalries and identification with a new team need time to develop fully.

In this paper, Janus is used as a metaphor for examining the nature of cultural diversity in Australian sport. It does so by firstly presenting a historical context for sport in Australia and the relative lack of cultural diversity found in sport. Within a country dominated by the running codes of football and cricket, the position of soccer in Australia was somewhat unique as it became a bastion for many non-Anglo migrant groups. However, in the 1980s and 1990s soccer's lack of organizational success at the state and national level was negatively ascribed to the tensions between the ethnically affiliated clubs, the same clubs that were ironically the stalwarts driving the growing popularity of the sport. We examine the initiatives used to restructure the game in Australia to make football more appealing to mainstream (i.e. non-ethnically aligned) spectators. The contemporary situation is explored through secondary documentation and the results of a survey of 3,056 spectators undertaken during the first season of the new A-League are presented. The paper concludes with a discussion about the relative success of the restructure in terms of changing the face of Australian soccer.

Research on disability and cultural life (the arts, leisure, recreation, sport and tourism) in the Australian context has largely been captured by medical approaches to disability. In contrast, this paper takes direction from social approaches to disability that place the experience of people with disabilities (PwD) at the centre of the research paradigm by examining this population's human rights' experiences. The paper is framed by reviewing the United Nations' disability initiatives including the Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities. The research then analyses the implementation and operation of Australia's Disability Discrimination Act, 1992 in respect to the cultural life of PwD. The research design uses a mixed method interpretive approach drawing on the management information systems of the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission and the Federal Court. The analysis of 420 complaint cases and 80 Federal court actions show a relationship between the types of discrimination experienced in cultural life and gender, disability type and industry sector. The recurring themes of discrimination demonstrate an ongoing struggle by PwD to assert their rights of citizenship.

This paper examines the public perceptions of stakeholders towards a proposed cultural heritage public-private partnership (PPP) within a national park in Sydney, Australia. Governments in Australia are initiating PPPs for the purposes of designing, planning, constructing and operating projects that would traditionally be regarded as 'public goods'. The North Head Quarantine Station (Sydney, Australia) was one of the first proposed PPPs in national parks that moved beyond the licensing of private sector operations within park boundaries. The Quarantine Station is used as a case study to offer insights into the PPP process because of its place in the cultural heritage of Australia, its prime a facie tourism position within Sydney Harbour and its prolonged history of development. The case study provides a mechanism for examining public opinion on cultural heritage tourism issues in national parks through understanding stakeholder perspectives presented in newspaper media accounts. The accounts are analysed on political and environmental considerations with implications drawn for future developments.

The retention of volunteers has been identified as a significant organisational challenge for community sport organisations. However, little is known about the relationship between volunteer motives and their intentions to remain with an organisation. In this study, 402 volunteers from community rugby clubs were surveyed about their motivations to volunteer and intention to remain as volunteers. The results indicate that while volunteer motivations are primarily based on altruistic values, intentions of volunteers to remain with their club are only moderately affected by these motives.

The paper presents an approach to understanding the accessibility of spaces and places for people with disabilities and seniors. For these groups, the challenges associated with recreational access are compounded by the cultural context, fragmented approaches to wayfinding and a lack of collaboration by providers to promote accessible experiences. The paper presents the outcome of the research project that sought to collaboratively promote accessible experiences within the Sydney CBD and Sydney Harbour environs. The Sydney for All web portal was developed in conjunction with three industry partners: Tourism NSW; Tourism and Transport Forum; and NSW Dept of Environment and Climate Change. The research engaged in participatory action research with the major stakeholders, attractions and the destination experience providers. The Web portal complies with the highest W3C web accessibility standards as evidenced through the compliance testing by Vision Australia. The paper outlines the research approach, underlying philosophy and the major accessibility features of the portal through a case study of the North Head Lookout. As will be demonstrated, the portal is a starting point to understanding accessible experiences through focusing on universal design, destination experience and management frameworks rather than using constraints based approaches that dominate mainstream access auditing.

This paper seeks to explore the notion of Therapeutic Recreation (TR) in an Australian context. It does so through first reviewing the historical development of Diversional Therapy (DT) services in Australia and then examining the impact on service delivery of ongoing national reform in the health and community care sectors. The paper suggests that such reforms have created a somewhat fluid state of affairs whereby DT staff need decide whether or not they effectively embrace change and the challenges that such reforms have brought, or accept a substantially lesser role in the overall scheme of Australian health services in the not-too-distant future. With this need for positive (and immediate) action in mind, the paper concludes with a discussion of what it is that DT staff need do to establish a valued place in the Australian health care mainstream.

Psychological contract theory is used here to explore the set of expectations and obligations that community sport club volunteers regard as part of their volunteering experience. In the first phase of the research, focus group interviews were conducted with 98 community sports club administrators about the methods used to manage volunteers and the organisational expectations of the volunteers. In phase two, 48 general volunteers were interviewed about their expectations and perceptions of the club's volunteer management practices. The findings indicate that club administrators and volunteers place different emphases on the transactional, assurance of good faith and fair dealing, and intrinsic job characteristic components of the psychological contract. Notably, club administrators had substantial expectations of volunteers in relation to adherence to professional, legal and regulatory standards. Volunteers were primarily concerned with doing rewarding work in a pleasant social environment that was able to fit within their often tight time restrictions. The implications of these findings for volunteer management processes and practice in community sport clubs are discussed.

This study used a human resource management (HRM) approach to examine the efficacy of volunteer management practices in predicting perceived problems in volunteer retention. Participants were a sample of 375 Australian Rugby Union clubs from across the country. Confirmatory factor analysis was used to examine the properties of a hypothesised reflective measurement model with seven volunteer management constructs (planning, recruitment, screening, orientation, training and support, performance management, and recognition). The efficacy of volunteer management practices was tested using regression analysis. The study found significant relationships between perceived retention problems and several of the volunteer management constructs.Clubs that reported more extensive use of planning practices and training and support practices were likely to report significantly fewer perceived problems in the overall retention of volunteers.Results indicated significant relationships between management practices and retention problems, with variances noted by the category of volunteer position, including management committee or board members, coaches, team managers and volunteers in other formal positions. Implications for volunteer management and retention are discussed from a HRM perspective

The research addresses theoretical and conceptual frameworks dealing with the formation and change of attitudes, cognitive dissonance, positive and negative prejudice, the concept of spread, overt and covert attitudes and their formation, and the nexus b

Given the growing numbers of consumers of leisure-oriented products and services for whom barrier-free travel (BFT) would be welcomed, the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) identified Barrier-Free Tourism as presenting market potential for the Asia-Pacific region. The research, subsequently commissioned to demonstrate an economic rationale and to develop guidelines for the development of a BFT industry, fulfilled these and other objectives through the use of a literature review, secondary data, questionnaires and web-based searches. The final report submitted to ESCAP incorporated numerous examples of best practice and recommendations in conjunction with the conclusion that BFT indeed presents a significant, market potential.

If Coca-Cola lost more than half of its Australian market share to Pepsi over a ten-year period marketers of fast moving consumer goods would be amazed at such a change in market share. Marketers of tourism destinations might be expected to be similarly amazed by the more than halving of Fiji's share of the Australian international tourism market between 1982 and 1996 and an approximately similar increase in Bali's market share. This study investigates one of the possible factors underlying Fiji's loss of market share by using Crompton's and Leiper's theory of tourist motivation in the context of Clare Gunn's' c'oncept of clustering of tourist attractions into tourism precincts .

The challenges faced by coastal protected areas in both promoting highly attractive sites and preserving the natural attributes of these sites have been given a new dimension with the opportunities presented by ecotourism. Realising the market potential of a protected area and, at the same time, conserving the unique features of an area is a difficult task. This paper explores the possibilities that backpacker tourism may offer the Quarantine Station in Sydney Harbour National Park, in Australia. The Quarantine Station is a signicant cultural heritage site that is located in a sensitive coastal national park within Sydney's metropolitan area.

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2018. Despite the extraordinary growth of the Paralympic Games since its inception, the movement is constrained by a series of inherent weaknesses. This chapter examines those structural issues that contribute towards these weaknesses through examining the management information systems of the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) and analysing these through the critical lenses of disability studies, critical management studies and human rights. These issues include the underrepresentation of some countries, gender bias and a split between the resource-rich and resource-poor regions. The analysis raises questions about equity between nations, the notion of fair competition and access to technical expertise amongst other areas of disparity. This chapter reviews these issues and identifies the role that disability classification and resource access can play in this disparity. The relationship between disability and poverty is clearly identified through the World Health Organisation's statistics with those in research-rich nations, or the behemoths of the Paralympics, clearly at a distinct advantage for the iconic sporting event. It is suggested that the Paralympic movement needs to acknowledge these disparities and seek to redress them through mechanisms like the millennium development goals. The IPC needs to do more to create a more level international sporting playing field for athletes with disability.

The Paralympics are undoubtedly the pinnacle sporting event for people with disability where accessibility is both a facilitator and a potential legacy of the event. Accessibility is so ubiquitous to contributing to legacy yet the operationalisation of accessibility has been so poorly understood globally that the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPWD) has placed it central to the preamble in 'recognising the importance of accessibility to the physical, social, economic and cultural environment, to health and education and to information and communication' (United Nations 2006, p. np). In doing so, the CRPWD recognises accessibility as the enabler for people with disability enjoying citizenship. Similarly, accessibility at the Paralympic Games has had a history of being considered the best they could do rather than on the cutting edge of accessibility for most of its early years. The informal convergence of the Olympic and Paralympic Games from Barcelona 1992 raised significant issues for disability access in host cities (Gold and Gold 2007). Although the requirement to run the two events together only really became binding with the 2008 Beijing Games, from 1992 potential hosts with an established record of upholding disability rights and legislation had a clear advantage in the bidding process that raised the expectations that the Paralympics would be incorporated with the highest level of accessibility.

In 2020 it will be 60 years since the first Paralympic Games in Rome
(International Paralympic Committee 2015a, b). Over that time the
Paralympics have grown into the world's third largest sporting event
behind the Olympic Games and Fédération Internationale de Football
Association (FIFA) World Cup. Each successive Paralympic Games has
made contribution to this growth: introducing new sports, encouraging
more countries to attend, increased scope of broadcasting, record
ticket sales, and alternative media channels to promote the event and
its athletes. From 1960 to 2020 this has led to 11-fold increase in athlete
participation, 'from less than 400 in 1964 to over 4,250 at London
2012 and a projected 4,350 for Rio 2016' (International Paralympic
Committee 2015b). Geographically, those countries represented at the
Games have grown from 21 to 164 competing for some 500 medal event 23, evolving from an event for wheelchair athletes to numerous activities
involving nine different impairment types (International Paralympic
Committee 2015b). The summer Paralympics now has a cumulative TV
audience of 3.8 billion people and has an increasing presence on social
media: at London 2012, for example, some 1.3 million tweets mentioned
'Paralympic' (International Paralympic Committee 2015b). Like
the Olympics, the focus of these statistics has often been on the summer
Paralympics, but there has also been important growth in the winter
Paralympic Games (Legg and Gilbert 2011).

Sydney for All is the outcome of a visitor accessibility and destination managen1ent project that sought to create accessible destination experiences for those with access needs, People with access needs arc part of all tourism markets including seniors and people with disabilities who have been defined as the "accessible tourism market." It is recognized in the literature that signiflcant barriers constrain the tourism experiences of this group. 'l1,e overall approach to developing accessible destination experiences was based on the experience economy and a geographic hierarchy of accessible attractions that sought to provide the market with a "sense of place:' For the accessible destination experiences, a template was developed to address these conceptual ideas, Although the project's basis can be found in the relevant building codes and Australian standards for access and mobility, this project sets itself apart by focusing on accessible destination experiences rather than the individual facilitators of access, Quite simply, what arc the accessible destination experiences that are quintessentially Sydney? The methodology was informed by universal deSign, the experience economy, and the geographies of disability, which sought to understand how people experienced space and place, 'Ille preliminary work involved access/management information systen1 reviews of stakeholders within the precinct area) in-depth interviews with key informants, review of other potential experience providers discovered by the interviews, and further snowballed interviews, Upon completion, a list of possible experiences was identified that haclthe potential to provide tourists with disabilities a sense of the Sydney experience, '1l1C experiences were then access audited and ohserved, and participants were observed to validate their selection,

Tourism is an activity very important socially and financially for many countries; it has a high priority within governments for economic management (Hall & Wall 1994; Veal 2011). Tourism has become an important sector where nations compete against each other for market share. Many countries are seeking a competitive advantage in international marketing of destinations through the development of specific customer service segments. These new segments are based on a series of socio-demographic and psychographic considerations to differentiate market needs of groups.

Olympic sport venues arc the stage upon which Olympic athletes perform and are a critical component for both athletes and spectators at Olympic Games, Venues built or rnodified sp('cifically to host the Olympic Games have become a focus of international media attention in the years leading up to these events for a combination of their design, aesthetic impact, construction time frames, operational logistics, cost and questions regarding longer-term usc and sustainability. Venues are sport specific, rnulti-sport and also include support venues sllch as the athlete village. The venues thal have been able to reflect the local historic cultural context and aspirations of the host nation in their design, such as Barcelona's swimming pool (Piscina Municipal de Montjui'c) with its panoramic views over Barcelona, or Beijing's 'BinI's Nest' National Stadium, have achieved iconic status and represent a strong architectural and cultural signature. This chapter begins by reviewing the history and development of Olympic Games venues and then focuses on the key contemporary issues in managing Olympic venues. In doing so, venue management considerations for bidding and host cities afe outlined. Historical documents from host cities, academic and social critiques of Olympic city venue management and other source documentation provide the basis for these discussions. The chapter first reviews the historical context of venues and Olympic cities before investigating the costs of infrastructure investment. With this background, venue life cycle and Olympic life cycle planning are examined. This is followed by an examination of iconic design that represents the best of what the host city wants to showcase to the world.

This chapter is based on a travel guide which was first published in Australia in 1995, Easy Access Australia-- A Travel Guide to Australia (Cameron, 1995, 2000). Easy Access Australia (EM) reflects an individual's need for accessible information during the planning stage and while travelling. The author is a wheelchair user following a swimming accident in 1976. Travelling in Europe, he met one of the Rough Guide's founders and suggested that an access guide to the UK be written. The Rough Guides did not pick up the idea, but EM was born.

This chapter provides an examination of the process and outcomes of a project on Alpine Accessible Tourism (MT) conducted in Australia from 2006 to 2008. The project was unique in that it sought to provide a systematic approach to accessible tourism across all alpine areas in Australia. Alpine areas in Australia are found in New South Wales, Victoria and Tasmania, each area having its own state and local government jurisdictions as well as separate protected-area management agencies. The project was theoretically informed through social approaches to disability, the geographies of disability, destination management and the experience economy.

In concluding the book, it is timely to reinforce the themes that have guided the examination of best case accessible tourism practice. They were: (1) Policies and Strategies; (2) Networks and Partnerships; (3) The Accessible Tourism Value Chain; (4) Destination Development; and (5) Accessible Tourism Experiences. While not suggesting a linear progression in the themes, there is no doubt an inherent logic to the way that the themes were sequenced and discussed.

Accessible tourism is gaining momentum across many different areas and activities within the tourism sector for both its inherent sensibility as a human rights issue and for its growing recognition as an important contribution to the economics of triple bottom line sustainability amid the general recession. This collection of accessible tourism best practice chapters is the companion volume to the first book, Accessible Tourism: Concepts and Issues (Buhalis & Darcy, 2011). While Accessible Tourism: Concepts and Issues sets out to explore and document the current theoretical approaches, foundations and issues in the study of accessible tourism, the focus of this book is on policy and best practice, reflecting the 'state-of -the-art' as expressed in a selection of international study chapters.

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Over recent years there has been an increasing body of work on the intersections between disability, ageing and tourism. This research aims to provide a review of the last 30 years of the Australian accessible tourism industry.

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Inclusion, disability, an ageing population and tourism are increasingly important areas of study due to their implications for both tourism demand and supply. This book therefore sets out to explore and document the current theoretical approaches, foundations and issues in the study of accessible tourism. In drawing together the contributions to this volume the editors have applied broader social constructionist approaches to understanding the accessible tourism phenomena. Accessible tourism, as with any area of academic study is an evolving field of academic research and industry practice. As with other areas of tourism, the field is multidisciplinary, and is influenced by various disciplines including geography, disability studies, economics, public policy, psychology and marketing

Disability is a social construct with approaches to and concepts of disability changing over history, between societies within historical periods and having cultural contexts (Gleeson, 1999). At different times and places, the dominant worldview affects the position of disability within the social context. It is important to understand these conceptual approaches and the implications they have for the treatment of people with disabilities in a tourism context. This chapter reviews the contemporary models and discourses of disability to provide a theoretical base on which to understand tourism from a disability perspective and, hence, the development of accessible tourism.

Legacy remains one of the most important issues relating to multisport mega-events across the globe and it could be argued that the development of legacy is one of the most urgent imperatives in elite sport. In this regard the Paralympics is no exception to the quest for long term legacy; however, little in the way of documentation appears to be forthcoming from the International Paralympic community in this regard. This book reviews the concept of legacy across previous Paralympic Games by providing a series of chapters under the headings of `The Paralympic Legacy Debate, `Paralympic City Legacies, `Emerging Issues of Paralympic Legacy and `Reconceptualising Paralympic Legacies. The issues arising are discussed in terms of a meta-analysis of the authors work and offer interesting ideas which if taken up by the International Paralympic Committee, International Olympic Committee, Bid Committees, OCOGs and major sports could change the face of Paralympic legacy towards the positive forever.

In this essay, Janus is used as a metaphor for examining the nature of cultural diversity in Australian sport. It does so by firstly presenting a historical context for sport in Australia and the relative lack of cultural diversity found in sport. Within a country dominated by the running codes of football and cricket, the position of soccer in Australia was somewhat unique as it became a bastion for many non-Anglo migrant groups. However, in the I 980s and 1990s soccer's lack of organizational success at the slate and national level was negatively ascribed to the tensions between the ethnically affiliated clubs. the same clubs that were ironically the stalwarts driving the growing popularity of the sport. We examine the initiatives used to restructure the game in Australia to make football more appealing to mainstream (i.e. non-ethnically aligned) spectators. The contemporary situation is explored through secondary documentation and the results of a survey of 3,056 spectators undertaken during the first season of the new A-League are presented. The essay concludes with a discussion about the relative success of the restructure in terms of changing the face of Australian soccer.

This chapter seeks to understand the tourist experiences of people with disabilities, including the seniors who also constitute the accessible tourism market. Tourism experiences can be viewed through many approaches. The following discussion is situated within the framework of critical theory in tourism studies and critical disability studies theory, both of which focus on ends rather than means, examining social power structures with a commitment to emancipation. The lived experience of the person is the subject matter and within the approaches of critical tourism and critical disability studies, the lived experience is a bodily experience. This chapter examines the embodied experience of those with disabilities within the tourism context.

This book aimed to explore and document the current theoretical approaches, foundations and issues in the study of accessible tourism. As has already been alluded to in a number of chapters, the tourism industry interest in accessible tourism has accelerated in recent years as stakeholders wrestle with notions of accessibility, `tourism for all, and the way in which these ideas can be incorporated into business practices. What should become apparent from a reading of the chapters is that accessible tourism is by its very nature multifaceted, which is conceptualised through a range of diverse theoretical discourses and networks. Due to this, it would be hubris for us to suggest in the course of this concluding chapter that a book such as this can ever hope to offer a comprehensive appraisal of the scope of accessible tourism as a developing and dynamic field.

This chapter presents the findings of a study into the economic contribution of tourists with disabilities to the Australian economy. The importance of including economic modelling within the research project is that rudimentary market estimates of tourists with disabilities in Australia were undertaken over a decade ago (Darcy, 1998). These estimates used a basic gross demand approach without having any detailed understanding of the expenditure patterns of the group. Further, while more detailed work has been undertaken in the US (HarrisInteractive Market Research, 2003, 2005) and Europe (Buhalis et al., 2005; Neumann & Reuber, 2004) these continued to use basic gross demand estimates rather than any form of sophisticated economic modelling.

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In more economically developed countries, tourism is considered part of the modern experience with all people having the right to travel. None the less, there are many groups of people who do not take holidays or do not fully participate in the holiday experience for reasons such as low income, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender, body size and disability. This chapter focuses on disability, in particular mobility, and argues that people with disabilities should expect the same rights to citizenship and the same quality of life as the non-disabled, which include the right to travel and participate in leisure activities (United Nations , 1993).

The chapter presents the framework of the book, sets the thematic direction and outlines each of the chapters.

The chapter draws together the planning and organisational considerations of hosting the Sydney Paralympic Games.

This chapter presents the research evidence about the infrastructure requirements for holding the Sydney Paralympic Games.

The chapter the draws together the research presented in the book, other contributing research and presents a Paralympic research agenda for the future.

The chapter draws together the research in the book, presents new evidence for legacy in the Sydney Paralympic Games and provides a lead in for future research agendas.

This chapter starts with the general premise that sport clubs have the potential to build social capital. Following on from this assumption, we specifically examine the role that soccer played in Australian society in relation to social capital development in the last century. Prior to 2003 the term soccer was officially used to describe football in Australia. We then discuss the present situation, recent governance and strategic positioning challenges implemented in the sport of soccer, and the impact these initiatives have had on the sport's social capital and its constituent communities.

The case examines the volunteer management practices within the Australian Rugby Union and its community clubs based based on the authors' ARC Linkage grant research.

© 2008, Simon Chadwick and Dave Arthur. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. The nations of England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland have a long tradition of rugby union competition and consequently strong brand recognition in the European marketplace. The English Rose, Irish Clover, Scottish Thistle and the Welsh Dragon are all well-known symbols associated with these countries and their sporting heritage. The Australian Wallabies, South African Springboks and New Zealand All Blacks, through their strong performances over a number of years (between them they have won four of the five Rugby World Cup's (RWC's) contested), have similarly strong brand recognition. However, the Pacific Islanders do not enjoy such an exalted position given their comparative lack of history. In marketing terms generally, and public relations specifically, the 2006 tour to Europe for test matches versus Wales, Scotland and Ireland therefore represented a significant challenge for the Pacific Islanders management team and their constituent nations. Indeed, even the rugby public in the Islands, more used to supporting the individual nations rather than the combined Pacific Islanders side, needed to be harnessed and won over from their traditional parochialism. As 2006 Pacific Islanders coach Pat Lam (2006) intimated: There's a lot of expectation back in the islands, he said. They'll all be up until three, four o'clock in the morning watching the games and the boys know that. We realise that there is a responsibility. If we do well there are huge benefits on and off the pitch for pacific island rugby, so it's a great challenge. This case examines how the vitally important role of media relations as an essential element of public relations was undertaken on the 2006 Pacific Islander's tour.

Encyclopaedia of leisure and outdoor recreation with 400 hundred entries. 200 word entry.

An encyclopaedia with 400 entries on leisure and outdoor recreation. The disability entry was 2200 words

An encyclopaedia of leisure and recreation with over 400 entries. Paralympic entry 220 words

Regional event management handbook aimed specifically at local government level

A book that brought together temporary research on diversity and leisure

A book that brings together tourism and economic development literature for Asia and Australasia

Disability is a complex multidimensional social construct where the type of disability and the level of support of individuals needs to be considered within leisure provision. In a leisure context, people with disability often face a multitude of constraints to participation. However, when leisure is possible, the benefits are substantial and worth pursuing. While other marginalised populations have received a great deal of attention across disciplines and in the field of leisure and recreation, disability has received comparatively less attention and generally in isolation to the leisure context.

A plethora of studies have conducted empirical research into disability discrimination in tourism and hospitality. However, no research has synthesised this research into a consolidated understanding of the nature of the empirical research. This research gap provides an unnecessary restriction to operationalize this research area within the best contemporary practice. This paper serves to close this research gap through examining key literature that has been historically associated with disability – ableism and disablism. A thematic analysis of disability and hospitality research was conducted using a combination of keywords involving disability and hospitality across 13 major academic databases. This study also purposefully explored how business managers and service staff in the tourism and hospitality sectors are responding to accommodate the needs of people with disability.

One of the 'offers' to host communities from the conduct of mega sport-events such as the Olympic and Paralympic Games is that following the event there would be increased participation in sport and physical activity. For Paralympic events, under the auspices of the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) there is the further hope that there will be a legacy of increased participation and social inclusion of people with disabilities as the result of hosting the event. Using a contextualist approach, this research explored the reliability of these claims by exploring the case of Whistler Adaptive Sports (WAS) in the lead up to and following the Vancouver 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games (Vancouver 2010) that were held in the city of Vancouver and the Resort Municipality of Whistler in British Columbia, Canada. WAS has evolved to leverage off the Vancouver 2010 infrastructure and social development.

To add to the understanding of the service experiences of vulnerable, stigmatized, and marginalized consumers, this research focuses upon the service experiences and co-creation of service recovery of people with disabilities over more than 20 years as evidenced by complaints cases to the Australian Human Rights Commission (2015). People with disabilities, permanent or temporary, account for nearly one in five people worldwide (World Health Organization and World Bank, 2011). By sheer population size this accounts for some 1 billion potential consumers, which is expected to rise to 1.5 billion by 2050. As a consumer group, this equates to between 10 to 20% of a population, depending upon the country. As such, organizations cannot afford to ignore these customers if they are interested in expanding their consumer and/or employee base. In the service context, it is not just the person with a disability that are recipients of service, but those who are also in their family, social or employment groups (Darcy, 2010). Hence, as organizations seek to transform service offerings to ALL consumers and community members, it is essential to understand how effectively this is operationalized within an organization and for particular customer segments, to provide service delivery and recovery that meets and, sometimes, exceeds customer expectations (O'Reilly, 2007).

The Paralympic Summer Games since the creation of the IPC in 1989 has grown from 83 participating nations in 1992 in Barcelona to 164 in 2012 in London. In the Paralympic Winter Games a similar growth has occurred with 24 nations participating in 1992 in Albertville to 45 in 2014 in Sochi. With this growth of nations has been a corresponding interest and challenge in determining what contributes to Paralympic success. In this presentation the two speakers will review the current research pertaining to Paralympic participation and success and facilitate a discussion that will hopefully lead to new understanding of how athletes, administrators, coaches, and sport scientists can encourage even greater participation and performance. This will include the use of the SPLISS model as a potential way to understand how Paralympic nations can assess their policies that lead to sporting success. This presentation will also build upon discussions from October's International Paralympic Committee's VISTA Conference where a similar discussion was also led by the two authors.

Previous research has highlighted that within the sport and event management literature there is an underrepresentation of disability or parasport research. This has occurred both in the general sport and event management literature as well as the more specific Olympic legacy discourse. The framing of Paralympic legacy is driven by the IPC's agenda to increase accessibility, develop sporting structures, improve perceptions of disability, and increase opportunities for participation in society. While there have been numerous scholars who have framed the evaluation of Olympic legacies, none have specifically addressed the evaluation of Paralympic legacies. While the IPC closely guard the agenda, other critical disability studies and sport sociology researchers have questioned the legitimacy of legacy beyond the short-term effects.

Gilligan's classic book, 'In a Different Voice' (1982), saw the establishment of an 'ethic of care' as an alternative approach to moral reasoning. In adopting this ethical stance: relational experiences between the 'self' and 'other' are humanized; cognizance of the giving and receipt of care is favoured; and, the embedded, interconnected and interdependent nature of individual lives is emphasized. This paper presents an argument in support of the preceding model, as a distinctive methodological approach to tourism scholarship, particularly in exploring relational constructions of travel in the moral domain.

Mobility and mobilities are terms with multiple meanings across different disciplinary divides. This keynote presentation will examine the concepts of universal design and mobilities across the travel chain. The presentation will be founded in the articles of the United Nations (2006) Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and examine the implications of 'universal mobilities' across personal, local, regional, national and international travel, the intersections of disability, support needs, life-cycle and lifespan. In doing so, the presentation will draw on examples of considerations for independent, dignified and equitable approaches to designing local, regional, national and international movement of people encompassed by the UN Convention.

This paper examines a study that investigated the social impact of creative participation in NSW Arts and Disability Partnership Projects (ADDP). The primary aim of the study was to research the social impact of creative participation in ADDP. The 12 projects each comprised different art mediums, organisational partnerships, levels of involvement, and types of artists with disability. Additionally, the research study sought to determine the broad social impact that funded projects have on: artists and/or other participants with disability; organisations within the funded programs; and audiences that attend such public programs. The overall conceptualisation of social impact in this project has been guided by the Conceptual Model of Social Impact as Active Citizenship framework(Darcy, Maxwell, Edwards, Onyx, & Sherker, 2014; Edwards, Onyx, Maxwell, & Darcy, 2012; Edwards et al., 2015; Onyx, 2014a, 2014b), which was used by the research team in a previous study. The research design adopted an abductive, mixed method, collective case study methodology, in order to allow for detailed analysis of the ADPP within their particular contexts and across various settings. The collective case study methodology provided the opportunity to engage in detail through a mixture of methodologies and data sources. These methodologies included: in-depth interviews with project managers, facilitators, participants, artists, audience members and participating organisations' employees; focus groups with stakeholders; project observations, and content analyses of related audio-visual materials, media reports, Facebook pages, websites, internal organisational and project documents, and project acquittals. Developing the social impact instrument was an iterative process, that is, it was continuously modified as more data was gathered, and the instrument was (re)tested and refined. As a consequence, 10 resultant factors and 33 indicators were identified, and each was modified to reflect bot...

Simon's address will draw on his personal, professional and technical knowledge of the impending business opportunities that the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) ca bring to the venue sector through understanding how to best provide an equality of experience to improve the social participation of people with disability as consumers, participants, volunteers and employees. His presentation will be divided into two parts: 1. Understanding the legislative and policy framework of disability reform; and 2. What is equality of experience for people with mobility, vision, hearing and cognitive disabilities?.

The NDIS, which is currently being piloted in three jurisdictions in Australia, is much talked about within the disability community but not very well understood by others. The NDIS is a revolutionary change to the way that all Australians that have or acquire a disability will be provided with services in the future. The presentation will outline the overall approach of the NDIS through community awareness, information provision for effective support of people with disability in the community and individual funding for the 400,000 people with disability with specialised support needs. The change to individualised funding allocation to each person presents challenges to current disability service provision and opportunities for business, government and the not-for-profit sector who are able to provide services that the group are looking to purchase. The Commonwealth government also has a National Disability Strategy that provides a framework for social participation across all areas of citizenship.

In a venue and event context, people with disabilities need to be considered as consumers, members, volunteers, participants and employees. From an audience perspective venue managers need to consider what constitutes an 'equality of experience' for the group. The presentation will examine cutting-edge contemporary practice for those with mobility, vision, ...

As a niche market, adventure tourism has been developing rapidly in many regions and territories, evidenced by increasing number of participants and intensive growth of adventure tourism products (Adventure Travel Trade Association, 2013; Tourism New Zealand, 2013). It has become an important component of the tourism industry in many Western countries (e.g. New Zealand) and is gaining some prominence in domestic tourism in select emerging countries (e.g. China and Brazil). This particular growth of adventure tourism sector in past two decades is closely related to the increase of all types of nature based tourism. Adventure tourism has been strongly likened to outdoor and adventure recreation (Buckley, 2006; Pomfret & Bramwell, 2014; Sung, Morrison, & O'Leary, 1996). Buckley (2006), for example, sees little distinction between the terms adventure tourism, nature tourism, outdoor and adventure recreation in some cases. However, research in adventure tourism has been slight, especially when compared with the large number of other dominant special interest tourism studies (Buckley, 2010). As such, an updated review article on adventure tourism in the tourism context seems essential.

It is recognised that government involvement in sport events is based on various rationales, and these rationales influence the potential outcomes a city may experience from hosting such an event (Gleeson & Low, 2000; Searle & Bounds, 1999; Veal, 2002). Over the last few decades, the economic potential that sport events offer a city has seen increased government interest and governments have been criticised for neglecting the social outcomes (Carrière & Demazière, 2002; Misener & Mason, 2006; Searle, 2002). Yet there is limited research that has empirically investigated government involvement in sport events. This paper aims to address two main objectives: to develop an understanding of rationales for government involvement in sport events and to understand how these rationales influence subsequent event outcomes.

http://apac08.org.au

Abstract Information on visitor numbers, activities, expectations and satisfaction is vital for protected areas managers on two counts: to assist in the provision of the services and facilities that visitors need and want; and to determine if managers have been efficient and effective in meeting these demands. This paper builds on a recently completed national study in Australia of visitor data collection and usage, and the future visitor data needs, of protected area management agencies. Australia is a federation of states and provides a challenging backdrop for developing a national approach as most responsibilities for protected areas rest with the states rather than the national government. Thus, the success of such an approach rests on cooperation rather than an overarching national regulatory responsibility. The study found that all protected area agencies collected visitor data, however, their approaches were highly variable in what was measured, how the measurements were applied and how data were managed and used. This variability was problematic because it becomes very difficult to determine issues of general importance for protected area management or to benchmark performance across areas. Based on these findings and knowledge of the institutional settings for protected area management in Australia, this paper poses some ideas for progressing a national approach for standardising the measures and measurement of key variables so that comparisons and benchmarking become possible and reliable. Core and supplementary visitor data variables can be identified, with the former being of national interest and hence requiring collection and storage under national coordination and guidance. Implementing such an approach will require working creatively and collaboratively within the current institutional settings.

The low-cost airline business model is predicated on an application of Porter's cost-leadership strategy wherein the aim is to be THE low-cost producer in the broad aviation market. On the one hand, from the supply side, it involves the elimination of, or a reduction in cost in, all of the elements of the (airline) product that do not directly contribute to provision of the core service of air transportation, or increasing revenue. From the airlines perspective, such elements could involve aspects like reservations and booking, checking-in, baggage handling, in-flight services and disembarking. The emphasis is also on maximizing capacity (aircraft) utilization and load factors and satisfying the safety and security requirements for airline operation in the countries within which they operate.

Publication of abstract proceedings

This paper presents an understanding of the air travel experiences of people with disabilities and draws implications for improving airline management practices. The theoretical foundation for the paper is based on applying a social approach to disability to the airline sector. The research design used a modified grounded and phenomenological qualitative approach that sought to understand the experiences of people with disabilities in their own words. These experiences were contrasted to the policies, procedures and operations of the three major Australian domestic airlines. The methods used to understand the experiences involved semi-structured, in-depth interviews that were part of a larger study into the tourism experiences of people with disabilities. Fifteen in-depth interviews were undertaken together with an analysis of the qualitative responses to a broader quantitative study on the same topic. The interviews were supplemented with complaint cases taken against airlines through the Australian Disability Discrimination Act, 1992. What emerged as the âessence of experienceâ was that airline procedures created a newly disembodied experience that transformed a person's impairment into socially constructed disability. The social construction was a product of international air regulations, airline procedures, pressures brought about by the introduction of low-cost airlines into Australia and a new wave of occupational health and safety considerations. The resultant experience for many was one of heightened anxiety, helplessness and, in too many cases, humiliation.

The combined effects of the increased ageing of the population, the relationship between ageing and disability rates and the proportion of the population who have a disability have significant implications for global tourism. Numerous studies have identified that the foundation of any tourism experience for people with mobility disabilities is locating appropriate accommodation. Such studies have identified serious issues with the way that accommodation information is documented, promoted and marketed by the accommodation sector. Other studies have identified that there is a considerable difference between the accommodation sectorâs understanding of access and that of people with disabilities. This research seeks to understand the 'discourse of accessâ between the demand and supply of accessible accommodation. To this point in time, no research has sought to assess the preferred accessible accommodation information formats for this group. This exploratory study presents a methodology for market testing four information formats for the mobility dimension of accessible accommodation. The information formats are based on current practice and proposed information formats. They are: AAA Tourism access icons; Spinal Cord Injury Australiaâs representation of AS1428; floorplan representation; and virtual tours/OSSATE. It is believed that the outcomes of this methodology will provide a suitable foundation for including access considerations as part of the broader Australian Tourism Data Warehouse; developing a business case for this class of accommodation through improved occupancy rates; and satisfaction with the presented information formats.

Protected area agencies are charged with the preservation, conservation and management of areas including wilderness, national parks and forests. These agencies are faced with increasing visitor numbers and decreasing budgets at a time where activities like tourism have to be managed alongside their traditional roles as natural resource managers. This paper reports on the outcomes of the first stage of a research project that seeks to guide a nationally consistent approach to visitor use data collection for protected area agencies. First, the paper provides a background literature review of approaches to visitor use data collection for protected area agencies. Second, the paper outlines the participatory action research approach used in the study where thirteen protected area agencies are collaborators in the research process. This approach ensures that the protected areas agencies data needs are central to the research outcomes and recognises the pragmatic organisational cultural issues associated with visitor data collection, management and use. The research process incorporates organisational networking at all levels from head office, regions, branches and individual parks involving management information systems, interviews, focus groups, presentations, briefings and follow-up contact. Third, the paper then presents the emergent themes that examine the issues and gaps in current visitor data collection, management and use systems. The paper concludes with discussion of the challenges to developing a national system of visitor data collection and use.

Often nature tourism development is viewed as a path to changing the economic industry base, security, and by implication towards creating community sustainability in rural areas. This paper argues that a sole focus on economic growth is too narrow a representation of the linkages between the tourism industry and host communities. It asserts that community sustainability is better seen as an integrating, encompassing concern for the cultural, social, economic and environmental sustainability potential of the community in a particular locality. The objectives of the 2004 Far South Coast Nature Tourism and Recreation Plan are presented as a means of illustrating the challenge in developing a sustainable future for Australian rural communities.

Working paper

The technical reports present data and its analysis, meta-studies and conceptual studies, and are considered to be of value to industry, government or other researchers. Unlike the Sustainable Tourism Cooperative Research Centres (STCRCs) Monograph series, these reports have not been subjected to an external peer review process. As such, the scientific accuracy and merit of the research reported here is the responsibility of the authors, who should be contacted for clarification of any content. Author contact details are at the back of this report. The views and opinions of the authors expressed in the reports or by the authors if you contact them do not necessarily state or reflect those of the STCRC.

This technical report is part of a broader national project `Systematic and strategic collection and use of visitor information in protected area management, funded by Sustainable Tourism Cooperative Research Centre (STCRC), and conducted in partnership with protected area agencies across Australia. The aim of this report is to provide a systematic approach to using a set of core variables to collect data in a way that can be consistently applied across Australian protected areas. This information is most relevant to park-level management, but is also of central interest for corporate reporting. An associated aim was to develop and test a questionnaire for collecting these data.

This report presents the composition of a generic park visitation survey instrument based on the core data variables that can be employed in multiple park level jurisdictions throughout Australia. Its focus is to identify the considerations for the future development of software-based solutions for data collection, aggregation, dissemination and reporting of park-based activity across the 14 protected area agencies.

The aim of the research was to bring the insights and interdisciplinary expertise of the research team to develop best business practice case studies in accessible tourism. This project builds upon the STCRC-funded workshop held on 12 July 2005: SydneySetting a Research Agenda for Accessible Tourism. Key findings are contained in the subsequent report (Darcy, 2006). This research project seeks to address the third prioritised outcome from that workshop: Industry EngagementThe Business Case for Accessible Tourism, by documenting the business case for accessible tourism through the development of business based, case studies of successful operators.

The research project was an STCRC scoping project to study a procedure for undertaking accessible tourism business cases. The project sought to case study examples of high standard accessible tourism product, facility or experience. The accessible tourism market is comprised of seniors and people with disabilities with access needs. It is recognised in the literature that there are significant barriers that constrain the tourism experiences of the group. A key component in the constraint is the supply of accessible tourism product and the understanding of the elements of business success with the market by the tourism industry. The methodology was informed by a case study approach and the triple bottom line scorecard. The research design sought to expand the thinking in general business performance more broadly than financial measures. The evaluation of environmental and social benefits has become part of core corporate practice. The preliminary work utilised a Delphi group to identify a range of high standard of accessible product, across states, segments and reflecting a range of ownership structures.

The research project was sponsored by the STCRC NSW state node to examine visitor accessibility in urban areas. Visitor accessibility encompasses all tourism markets including seniors and people with disabilities who have been identified as the accessible tourism market. It is recognised in the literature that there are significant barriers that constrain the tourism experiences of the group. As determined by the Industry Reference Group (IRG) the precinct study area was the main Sydney tourism precinct that incorporated: the transport hub from Central to Circular Quay East and West Circular Quay The Rocks Royal Botanic Gardens Sydney Harbour environs and Sydney Harbour National Park Manly Ferry, Manly boardwalk and North Head Lookout.

The field of cultural landscapes tourism is under-developed in Australia at the level of theory, research and policy development. Yet international research suggests that cultural landscapes tourism has significant potential in attracting new tourists. This research project is a scoping study designed to set out the parameters involved in cultural landscapes tourism research in Australia. It aims to identify how cultural heritage and contemporary cultural diversity impact on visitor experience and on local communities. The objective is to assist the Australian tourism industry particularly those located in regional and rural areas in understanding the growing importance of cultural tourism, by developing a number of case studies of cultural landscapes tourism in two Australia states. These case studies provide examples of existing tourism in a range of different cultural landscape sites, enabling the development of a process by which to identify change in cultural heritage tourism regions, including examining how multicultural precincts can operate as sustainable tourism destinations. Fieldwork with tourists and stakeholders will enable the development of industry strategies to increase tourism in the future. In addition, this fieldwork will facilitate the development of an innovative, multi-disciplinary theory of cultural landscapes tourism. This will set the stage for future research and policy development.

http://www.crctourism.com.au/BookShop/BookDetail.aspx?d=602

People with visual disabilities Travel Australia. Tourism Research Australia.

On 12 July 2005, a Sustainable Tourism Cooperative Research Centre Research workshop was held at the New South Wales Department of State and Regional Development, titled Setting a Research Agenda for Disability and Tourism. The Australia-wide workshop involved key academic researchers, industry partners, community organisations and government authorities interested in disability and tourism, and was attended by 45 invited participants. While broadly looking at dimensions, approaches and issues surrounding disability and tourism, the workshop recognised the broad context of accessible tourism initiatives recently commissioned by Tourism Australia, the incorporation of universal design principles in new buildings, and the development of Easy Access Markets.

LP0453526

http://www.business.uts.edu.au/lst/downloads/07_Disability_Tourism.pdf

http://www.lib.uts.edu.au/students/finding-information/collections/digi…

The production of this study on barrier-free tourism for people with disabilities in the Asian and Pacific region was undertaken with financial assistance from the Government of Japan. The study was prepared by Mr. Bruce Cameron, Mr. Simon Darcy and Ms. Elizabeth Foggin, consultants

This article examines the preparations for disability and access in the Gold Coast 2018 Commonwealth Games and the juxtaposition with the lack of due diligence of Queensland rail in purchasing $5 billion in new rolling stock that does not meet accessibility standards

The format of the program is that an invited 'expert' on the topic on the topic of accessible tourism to start a discussion and present key research findings and then also listeners are invited to contribute their ideas as part of the discussion.
DATE: Thursday 6th July
TIME: 10:05am live to air
TOPIC: Mornings Institute - How can we make travel and tourism more accessible?

The article examines the legal, insurance, compensation and impact of spinal cord injury perspectives on the Alex McKinnon case. Alex McKinnon had a spinal cord injury caused by a tackle in the National Rugby League in 2014. The cases brought into sharp focus in series of workplace, sport insurance and

The article examines the underlying charter of the National Disability Insurance Scheme, the current board structure and the proposed changes to the board. It is suggested that by 'corporatizing' the board structure with people of high-level business experience without an understanding of disability that a fundamental principle of the establishment of the NDIS has been compromised. People with disability and those with an understanding of the disability sector should be core