The concept of universal design has been an important issue in Norway for the last 10 years and is growing in importance. The concept is referred to in existing and new laws and regulations, actions plans, county and municipality planning documents and standards. The needs of the disabled are an important aspect of universal design and, in turn, these needs have to be taken into account in relation to tourism. For many people, going on holiday and exploring new destinations is a popular way of recharging physical and mental energy to meet the challenges of everyday life. This is not always a simple task for people with disabilities, because many tourist destinations are not accessible to all.
About 40 million people in Europe have a disability and, as tourists, need a barrier-free environment. In Norway and many other countries, great attention is paid towards making services and activities in the tourist industry accessible to people with disabilities. The industry itself considers this to be an interesting new market, especially in view of the growing proportion of elderly people.
There is a need to increase knowledge about the diversity of the population and to disseminate information about the level of accessibility offered by the tourist companies and the destinations they offer.
Pilot study
To address these issues, Norway’s Ministry of Trade and Industry financed a preliminary pilot study to develop a labelling system for tourism where the degree of accessibility for people with different kinds of disabilities would be presented. The project was carried out in 2003-2004 by Standards Norway and the Delta Centre* of the Directorate for Health and Social Affairs.
In this pilot study, the labelling systems in different European countries were studied. Additionally there was a close cooperation with Danish Standards for learning from their experiences with a similar programme. The recommendation from the Norwegian project was to continue the work in near cooperation with the tourist industry.
(* The Delta Centre is Norway’s National Resource Centre for Participation by and Accessibility for People with Disabilities.)
National strategy for tourism
The Ministry of Trade and Industry has just recently published a national strategy for the tourist industry in Norway. The tourist industry is the fastest growing industry in the world and the number of travellers worldwide is expected to double within 2020. This represents immense opportunities for Norway and the Norwegian tourist industry.
The national strategy focuses on increased productivity and value creation in the tourist industry, viable local communities and positioning Norway as a sustainable tourist attraction. One of the goals is to contribute to the security and quality of Norwegian tourist products. A quality management system is mentioned in that respect.
The new Norwegian Standard NS 11010 Accessible tourist destinations – Requirements as a basis for a labelling system, would be an important tool in such a quality system and the standard is indeed referred to in the strategy.
Standardization project
In 2006, Standards Norway and the Delta Centre established a standardization committee to develop a national labelling system for accessibility in the tourist industry. The committee consisted of members both from the tourist industry and associations representing the disabled.
The objectives of the standard NS 11010 are to:
- give the consumer accurate and reliable information;
- provide companies with a tool for working towards increased accessibility;
- spearhead the implementation of the government’s policy of increasing accessibility for people with disabilities.
The requirements and recommendations concern four categories of user with the following disabilities in the following areas:
- walking problems and/or arm and hand impairments;
- visual;
- hearing;
- asthma and/or allergies.
A tourist destination can obtain the right to use from one to four labels related to meeting accessibility criteria for people in the above categories. All the categories have a set of minimum requirements. The standard contains 107 requirements within 14 main areas:
- parking;
- access to the main entrance, ticket office;
- entrance;
- reception;
- information, service and safety;
- corridors and passages;
- doors;
- elevators;
- lavatories and bathrooms;
- overnight accommodations;
- kitchen connected with the overnight accommodation;
- restaurants, conference rooms, etc.;
- cleaning;
- adventure.
As an example, the requirements related to the area parking and accessibility have 15 requirements. Ten of the requirements are related to people with walking problems and/or arm and hand impairments and 11 requirements are related to people with visual impairments.
In order to meet the set quality specifications, a number of additional recommendations were added to the list of requirements in each area. These are not prerequisites for obtaining a label, but are intended to help the tourist destinations improve the accessibility for guests with different kinds of disabilities, and raise awareness about the need that people with disabilities have for adaptation.
In order to obtain a successful implementation of a future national labelling system, it is vital that the industry itself fully supports the idea. The businesses in the tourist and cultural sector must find the system useful and market-oriented. It has to be at once realistic and economically worthwhile. Furthermore, disabled people’s associations must be able to trust the system to give accurate and reliable information to their members.
Organization
The standardization project has both quantitative and qualitative aspects. The participants were selected on previously displayed interest in and knowledge about accessibility matters. The recruiting of the participating businesses was made in close cooperation with the Confederation of Norwegian Business and Industry’s Department for Tourism.
It is important to have a broad variety among the participating businesses. In the event, a tourist destination company, a hotel company, an amusement park, a restaurant and a museum have participated in the work.
With this approach, it has been possible to achieve feedback on the usefulness of the chosen criteria from different kinds of businesses.
A dialogue-oriented approach is used in the project. In this way, the information and points of view from the businesses and the disabled associations have formed the basis for the project.
The standardization process
The standardization process is not easy. There are a variety of user requirements within each user group and competing interests and contradictory considerations often have to be dealt with. Another challenge is the fact that requirements of one user group may conflict with those of another.
Probably, the biggest challenge faced by the committee is how to weigh the need for sufficient quality specifications to meet the needs of people with disabilities against the requirement for a practical and market-oriented tool. At the same time, the assessment tool must be understandable, easy to follow and realistic. If the standard is too complicated and the list of requirements too long, businesses may not find it viable to implement.
The objective is to encourage the businesses to continuously improve their accessibility, by qualifying for the use of an increasing number of labels. It was decided that the target groups for the labelling system are destinations that offer overnight stops, those serving food and drinks, and attractions of a permanent character such as exhibitions, amusements parks and sports centres.
The project has also emphasized the importance of including activities and events in the standard. When it comes to accessibility to activities and events, a different kind of structure is necessary.
Vision or hearing impaired people, people with walking problems and/or arm and hand impairments or people with allergies will need totally different adaptations in order to participate in the activities or cultural events that are offered. We therefore found it unwise to specify requirements in experiences and cultural activities.
Firstly, it would be impossible to tell which specifications are the most important as this depends on what disability and what activities are offered. Secondly, by operating only with a subset of requirements, these may not be suitable or exclude other subcategories of the same groups.
The standard stresses that knowledge about the user categories is vital in order to know how to adapt and give assistance to each individual guest. This shall also include awareness about the problems people with disabilities are facing. Knowledge about how to communicate with hearing and vision impaired is necessary to ensure that the information is understood. Measures of security will give guests with disabilities the feeling of being safe from injury.
Hosting competence is an important part of the standard. Training of the staff is also important in security matters and in order to dismantle discriminatory attitudes. The human factor cannot be underestimated. Assistance and customer service is vital for all tourists.
There are ongoing discussions between the Confederation of Norwegian Business and the Ministry of Trade and Industry concerning a future certification system for the accessibility label to receive the “Trademark Norway”.
NS 11010 user - Bryggens Museum
NS 11010 user - Scancic Hotels
This article was first published in the magazine ISO Management Systems May-June 2008.