Philippines Tourism to Cater for People With Disabilities

Alberto A. Lim

The Philippines Department of Tourism pledged to eliminate barriers to travel for persons with disabilities (PWD) at a forum with tourism stakeholders and representatives from the PWD sector, in connection with 33rd National Disability Prevention and Rehabilitation Week from July 17 to 23, 2011.

           

Tourism Secretary Alberto A. Lim said “The trend is not to have separate services for PWDs, but for full integration in our hospitality industry. This entails making our products suitable to persons with particular needs so that they may enjoy travel equally with everyone else”.

Along these lines, The Philippines Department of Tourism last February passed a Memorandum bringing into operation a 20% discount guarantee for persons with disabilities. These include discounts in the use of accommodation establishments, admission to leisure and amusement centers, medical and dental services, and transportation fare, among others.

According to Adela Avila-Kono, accessibility specialist of the Regional Council for Disability Affairs in Cebu City and speaker at the forum, “barrier-free tourism” is a concern shared by PWDs, senior citizens and retirees, and mothers and children. PWDs are a growing group of consumers of travel, numbering as many as 10% of the world’s population by most estimates.

The main constraints for travelers with disabilities may be classified into difficulties in using transportation and accommodation facilities and the inaccessibility of tourism sites. Avila-Kono says special focus should be turned to toilets and bathrooms, where at least 90% of accidents among PWDs and the elderly occur.

Recommendations included the use of appropriate signage, design specifications for various structures (such as the width of doorways and facilities at convenient heights for wheelchair-bound travelers), and presence of additional PWD-friendly facilities and services like ramps, handrails, non-skid flooring, and audio and visual public announcements. Similar criteria were used in conferring PWD Friendly Tourist Establishment Awards to select hotels and shopping centers by the Makati City Government and United Architects of Makati in 2009.

  

Victoria V. Jasmin

Victoria V. Jasmin, The Philippines Department of Tourism Undersecretary Ma, .said “The Department of Tourism does provide tourism-related establishments with incentives for PWD-related renovation through the Tourism and Investment Enterprise Zone Authority (TIEZA). The time is right to commence more concerted action on this issue.  The Department of Tourism will also include in its training modules for tourism frontliners a seminar on Disability Awareness / How to Handle PWDs”.

Issues on assistance of PWDs include those of communication, specifically misconceptions and lack of sensitivity about disabilities and lack of trained personnel. An environment that makes travel more expensive for PWDs – by requiring them to book a more expensive room for lack of barrier-free facilities in ordinary ones, for example – also discourages them from travel. Forum speaker Prof. Enrico C. Aguila of the University of Santo Tomas (UST) College of Rehabilitation Sciences added, ”Social and attitudinal barriers sometimes do more harm.”

Participants in the forum advocated the application of provisions in the UN Commission on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCPRD) on rights recognition and universal design standards, and an updating of the Batas Pambansa 344 law on accessibility.

The forum was a joint effort of the Department of Tourism and the National Council on Disability Affairs (NCDA).