Tourism For All NZ Research Group
Champions for accessible and inclusive tourism in New Zealand.
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Tourism For All NZ at UD2024
The Tourism for All NZ Research Group recently presented a discussion of our lessons about making tourism accessible and inclusive in NZ and Australia to an international audience of delegates at the 2024 Universal Design Conference, Norway, hosted by the Norwegian Ministry of Culture and Equality.View the video online or download the presentation.
Key Facts and Figures about Accessible Tourism
Tourism For All New Zealand have collected useful, evidence-based facts about accessible tourism in New Zealand. Read them here, and keep up to date with our industry-relevant research (links coming soon).
Did you know that the access tourist market represents 25% of global tourism, is larger than China and Europe combined, and is growing three times faster than any other tourist market?
Key Facts and FiguresRecent Submissions
Ageing With Disability, Relationships and Relational Place Making: Bali Tourism Case Study
(Taylor and Francis Group,2025-08-11) Cockburn-Wootten, Cheryl; Indrawati, Yayu; McIntosh, Alison
Bali has become a well-known island destination in Indonesia for senior tourists and Bali’s tourism strategy has indicated a desire to attract senior visitors. This study adopted an interpretative approach to examine how relational place making processes shape the embodied experiences of tourists who are ageing with disability within the destination of Bali. Joint interviews were conducted with six tourists ageing with disability and their travel companion, and 10 tourism providers. Our findings contribute insights into the relational lived world of ageing with disability and tourism for a destination that seeks to encourage this market. Focusing on ageing with disability, this paper contributes to challenging understandings of ageing and disability, with lived meanings within a tourism place evidenced as negotiable, often contested, and socially connected. Two key themes were found in our study relating to a sense of familiarity through the passage of time, and a sense of freedom to be relating to what it means to ‘be’ in tourist places, or, how tourists who are ageing with disability ‘are’ in the place. These findings contribute insights into the relational embodied perspectives of ageing with disability that could help facilitate agency, participation and inclusive relations with others within place making.
Accessibility Requirements of Inbound Chinese Tourists with Disabilities to New Zealand: A Supply Perspective
(Auckland University of Technology,2025) Han, Haozhe
This study explored a supply perspective of the accessibility requirements of inbound Chinese tourists with disabilities to New Zealand. The objectives of the study were to: 1) determine how the tourism industry can best meet the accessibility requirements of tourists with disabilities from the perspectives of accessible tourism service providers; and 2) analyse Chinese outbound tour operators’ websites accessibility and provision of accessibility information for inbound Chinese tourists with disabilities to New Zealand.
The first research objective was met through semi-structured interviews with two experienced New Zealand accessible tourism service providers. Their data revealed that customised services, collaboration, and information provision were the key needs for meeting the requirements of tourists with disabilities. The study showed that New Zealand accessible tourism service providers believe these strategies can effectively address the accessibility requirements of tourists with disabilities.
The second research objective involved analysing the websites of six Chinese outbound tour operators that were recommended as preferred partners by Tourism New Zealand. Applying web content analysis, the study analysed the websites’ accessibility and their provision of accessibility information. The results revealed that the websites were inadequate in addressing the accessibility requirements of Chinese tourists with disabilities, especially in terms of the provision of accessibility information.
This study is one of the few in New Zealand that focuses on the accessibility requirements of Chinese tourists with disabilities from a supplier perspective. It provides recommendations for improvement for both New Zealand accessible tourism service providers and Chinese outbound tour operators, with the aim of promoting the development of the accessible tourism market between the two countries and enabling more tourists with disabilities to participate in tourism activities.
Unheard Voices: The Lived Leisure Travel Experiences of Individuals With Early-Onset Parkinson's in New Zealand
(Auckland University of Technology,2024) Atkinson, Chris
This thesis aims to explore and interpret the lived leisure travel experiences of individuals with Early-Onset Parkinson’s (EOP) in New Zealand. Parkinson’s is a neurodegenerative brain condition, and EOP applies to those individuals diagnosed before 50 years of age. While Parkinson’s and EOP are typically considered to be a ‘disease’ in the medical world, the World Health Organization asserts that the condition results in high rates of disability and thus the need for care. Hence, in this thesis, EOP is positioned as a disability, and simply referred to as EOP.
Tourism has been argued to be barrier-laden and exclusionary of people with disabilities (PwD), which can lead to marginalisation and social inequality. Yet, in an ideal world, tourism should be equally accessible to and inclusive of all people, including those who live with disability. Like people with different dimensions of disability, individuals with EOP are socially marginalised, yet they may still wish to participate in leisure experiences, including travel and tourism, as a means of enhancing their quality of life, physical health, psychological well-being, and social interaction. Research into the lived leisure travel and tourism experiences of people with different dimensions of disability is growing; however, this is predominantly focused on people with physical and sensory disabilities. While studies focusing on cognitive disabilities are emerging, there is a lack of work on EOP in existing scholarship.
This interpretive phenomenological study seeks to give voice to individuals with EOP and bring their lived leisure travel experiences to life. It employed semi-structured interviewing with 10 participants in New Zealand. Three key themes emerged inductively from the thematically analysed data, namely: (1) (In)visibility of EOP in travel; (2) Sense of urgency to travel; and (3) Managing symptoms during travel. (In)visibility of EOP in travel reveals how, within the context of travel, individuals with EOP experience the effects of their symptoms presenting as either invisible, visible, or both, to others. This can result in individuals expressing a felt need to disclose the cause of their EOP symptoms. Sense of urgency to travel reveals, among other things, that the urgency to travel for individuals with EOP is seemingly greater than for those with terminal illnesses, because of the time-bound physical and cognitive restrictions that EOP creates. Managing symptoms during travel reveals the importance of accurate information for preplanning, and both the need and desire for a companion to accompany the travel of individuals with EOP.
As the only study at the time of writing to explore EOP within the burgeoning body of accessible tourism scholarship, either internationally or in New Zealand, this research augments existing understandings of PwD by adding a new body of information about another dimension of disability, EOP, that has not previously been considered and gives voice to the leisure travel experiences of those living with EOP. In exploring and revealing these experiences, it is hoped that unheard voices become heard, in both inquiry and industry alike, helping break the cycle of marginalisation of PwD in tourism, through increased awareness, understanding, and empathy.
Key Facts and Figures About Accessible Tourism
(2024) Tourism For All
This document presents facts and figures to support the social and economic imperative of ensuring Aotearoa New Zealand’s visitor experiences deliver a 100% welcome to everyone, regardless of their age or ability.
Delivering a 100% welcome for all is premised on the fact that the global population is ageing. With age comes disability and the need for access and inclusion.
Enabling Accessible and Inclusive Tourism: Lessons from New Zealand and Australia
(Norsk Regnesentral,2024-11-21) McIntosh, Alison Jane; Flemmer, Claire; Darcy, Simon; Gillovic, Brielle
The overarching goals of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, and Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) bring an important spotlight on the need to foster accessibility for everyone, regardless of their ability, age, or background; indeed, participation is a human right. In recent work, we challenge our peers, policy makers, and providers to reflect critically on, and help dismantle, the disabling discourses and normative structures that continue to marginalise and oppress people with disability in their role as tourists. The tourism industry has largely failed in its moral and social responsibility to design and promote tourism experiences ‘for all’. As academic researchers, our focus on, and aspiration toward, social change means that social solutions are possible to help achieve full access and inclusion for all tourists in transportation, built and natural environments, and information communication technologies (in accordance with Article 9, CRPD) so that experiences become not only accessible, but equitable, dignifying, empowering, and enabling for tourists with disability. Without changes to infrastructure, industry attitudes, information, and care provision, individuals with disability will remain unable to assume the role of tourist and therefore remain ‘disabled’.
In this presentation, we discuss the findings of recent research borne out of our relationships with the disability community and essential understandings of their lived experiences. Our collective research shows that people with disability want and expect to exercise their right to enjoy the benefits of participation in travel and tourism, but multiple barriers and constraints to their access remain despite human rights frameworks and some accessibility legislation in some countries. Notably, our research highlights the various constraints different dimensions of disability place on the built environment. To shed light on how access may be better enabled for people with disability to overcome physical and social barriers, we discuss conclusions from recent ‘accessible tourism’ research in New Zealand and Australia. Specifically, we compare and contrast the notably different stances taken by each country’s tourism industry towards accessibility and critically consider how the dis/ability theme can inform universal design thinking and action to inform policy, research and practice. In conclusion, we reflect on our collaborative research findings to consider the challenges and opportunities for making tourism more accessible and inclusive, and to removing physical barriers through a focus on universal design, for the benefit of everyone living in and visiting Australasia and beyond.