Tourism is an important source of growth for the economy in Europe. However, travelling can still be a real challenge for persons with disabilities as finding the information on services, checking luggage on a plane, booking an accessible room often prove to be difficult, costly and time consuming.

EDF wants to raise awareness of everybody’s right to have equal access to tourism services and works closely together with the European Commission and other relevant stakeholders in order to raise awareness of the benefits of making tourism accessible.

The Access City Award that EDF co-organizes, are one of the Commission’s initiatives to reward European cities that have taken measures to become more accessible, both for tourists and local residents. By recognizing accessibility as an important success factor for tourism destinations, good practices are spread across the EU. Previous years’ winners have included Gothenburg (Sweden), Ávila (Spain, Salzburg (Austria) and Berlin (Germany).

We are also currently participating in a  European project called “Accessible Spaces for All” about improving accessible tourism in rural regions in Central Europe under the INTERREG programme.