Published on : 19/Feb/2011

The tourism industry is not doing enough to meet the needs of disabled travellers, according to a recent report. Travel destinations and services are not well-equipped to deal with elderly and disabled holidaymakers and the industry is not making enough effort to make changes, said Bournemouth University tourism expert Dimitrios Buhalis. The deputy director of the university's International Centre of Tourism and Hospitality Research highlighted disabled travel as one of the biggest challenges facing the holiday industry. Challenge: The travel industry is struggling to assist disabled travellers 'Globally there are more than 650million people with disabilities, and this figure is set to rise due to the ageing of the population', said Mr Buhalis. 'This poses a considerable challenge for global tourism. The industry must take a more proactive approach to ensure that infrastructure and services are more accessible.' Philip Scott, managing director of disabled travel company Can Be Done, reiterated the problem, saying many high street travel shops simply cannot offer the individual arrangements that are often needed. 'It can take us several weeks to put everything in place that is needed by our holidaymakers,' he told TravelMail. 'Hotels have a limited number of adapted rooms so availability can be difficult and even if there are hotels that cater for disabled people, some countries like Morocco and Mexico just don't have the infrastructure to even transport people from the airport.'