Sunshine Coast, Queensland looks to accessible tourism

With one in five Queenslanders hav­ing a dis­ab­il­ity and an age­ing pop­u­la­tion using more mobil­ity aids, every­day access to facil­it­ies on the Sun­shine Coast is becom­ing increas­ingly dif­fi­cult, accord­ing to the Sun­shine Coast Council.

The Coun­cil will host an Inclus­ive Tour­ism and Com­munity Plan­ning For­um next week (June 7, 2017).

Com­munity Pro­grams Port­fo­lio Coun­cil­lor Jenny McKay said the For­um was in line with council’s com­mit­ment out­lined in the Sun­shine Coast Social Strategy ensur­ing people and places were connected.

“The use of uni­ver­sal design con­cepts in plan­ning and design of pub­lic spaces allows for essen­tial access­ib­il­ity for the com­munity,” McKay said.

“The for­um will take a closer look at how uni­ver­sal design con­cepts can be applied dur­ing the plan­ning phase to go bey­ond ensur­ing Dis­ab­il­ity Dis­crim­in­a­tion Act com­pli­ance, to examin­ing a way of life.

“Some­times the smal­lest changes at the design stage can make monu­ment­al dif­fer­ences for a per­son liv­ing with a disability.”

For­um speak­ers will include Queens­land Tour­ism Industry Coun­cil (QTIC) CEO Daniel Gschwind in addi­tion to Queensland’s Anti-Dis­crim­in­a­tion Com­mis­sion­er Kev­in Cocks AM, aca­dem­ics, an archi­tect, and an urb­an planner.

Accord­ing to QTIC, people with access­ib­il­ity needs account for 8.2 mil­lion overnight trips and AU$ 8 bil­lion (~ US$ 5.9 bil­lion)  or 11 per cent of Aus­trali­a’s over­all tour­ism expenditure.

“Access­ible tour­ism is much broad­er than people with a dis­ab­il­ity. Older people, par­ents with prams and trav­el­lers from over­seas can all bene­fit from improved inform­a­tion, build­ings that are access­ible, and an inclus­ive approach to cus­tom­er service.”

Queens­land held its first access­ible tour­ism-related event on the Gold Coast in Feb­ru­ary 2017.

Sources: My Sun­shine Coast. QTIC.