Assessing the Accessibility of Disabled Guests' Facilities for Enhancing Accessible Tourism: Case Study of Five- Star Hotels' Websites in Alexandria

Abstract

Special issue on papers of the 10 th ICTH (2017) organized by Faculty of Tourism and Hotels, Fayoum University

Assessing Africa Readiness to Host Travelers with Disabilities: A Review of Accessible Accommodation Studies in African Countries

“…On the supply side, 11% of the existing research has declared that lack of accessible information is indeed the primary barrier limiting disabled guests from enjoying their accomodation. Khalil and Fathy (2017) have revealed that hotel websites in Egypt offer information that is not user-friendly to disabled people.…”

“…Disabled people in African countries face a lot of challenges. These include; attitude barrier e.g., negative attitude from the community and service providers (Oladokun, Ololajulo & Oladele, 2014;Mensah, Badu & Opoku, 2015;Bombom & Abdullahi, 2016;Adam, Boakye & Kumi-Kyereme, 2017;Adam, 2019) and ignorance of service providers (Spencer & Mnqayi, 2017;Abd-Elraof, Dawood & Mohamma, 2018;Chikuta, DuPlessis & Saayman, 2018), communication barriers e.g., limited trained personnel to communicate with disabled people (Oladokun, Ololajulo & Oladele, 2014;Lwoga & Mapunda, 2017;Refaat & Ibrahim, 2017;Chikuta, Kabote&Chikaya, 2017;Chikuta, DuPlessis & Saayman, 2018), lack of clear and up-to-date information (Adam, Boakye & Kumi-Kyereme, 2017;Chikuta, DuPlessis & Saayman, 2018) and lack of user-friendly hotel websites (Khalil & Fathy, 2017); physical challenges e.g., limited facilities (Lwoga & Mapunda, 2017;Refaat & Ibrahim, 2017;Chikuta, Kabote & Chikaya, 2017), inaccessible transport systems (Bombom&Abdullahi, 2016;Chikuta, DuPlessis & Saayman, 2018), lack of appropriate tourism activities for disabled people (Chikuta, Kabote&Chikaya, 2017), and lack of accessible accommodation (Bisschoff & Breedt, 2012;Chikuta, 2015;Khumalo & Ndlovu, 2017;Mangwiro et al, 2018;Meskele, Woreta &Weldesenb, 2018). These are among the serious problems limiting disabled travelers from enjoying their trips.…”

“…Although the existing literature has pointed out challenges limiting people with disabilities from enjoying accommodation in African countries, their focus was on specific African countries such as South Africa (e.g., Bisschoff & Breedt, 2012;Spencer & Mnqayi, 2017;Khumalo & Ndlovu, 2017), Zimbabwe (e.g., Mangwiro et al, 2018), Egypt (e.g., Tantawy, Kim & Pyo, 2005;Atef, 2011;Hussein & Jones, 2016;Khalil & Fathy, 2017;Abd-Elraof, Dawood & Mohamma, 2018), Ethiopia (e.g., Meskele, Woreta & Weldesenb, 2018) and Ghana (e.g., Adam, 2015). Also, the focus of their studies was either from the suppliers perspective (e.g., Tantawy, Kim & Pyo, 2005;Atef, 2011;Bisschoff & Breedt, 2012;Chikuta, 2015;Adam, 2015;Spencer & Mnqayi, 2017;Khalil & Fathy, 2017;Meskele, Woreta &Weldesenb, 2018;Abd-Elraof, Dawood & Mohamma, 2018) or the demand side (e.g., Hussein & Jones, 2016;Khumalo & Ndlovu, 2017;Magwiro et al, 2018). A study that reviewed and analyzed the ability of the accommodation sector in Africa, both demand and supply side to host travelers with different forms of disabilities in its totality is missing.…”