Turismo Acessível em Portugal – Estudo de casos de boas práticas

This paper addresses issues pertaining to the development of accessible tourism destinations. It sets forth the competitive advantages of developing goods and services that are adequate for a segment of tourists that may have permanent or transitory reduced mobility and/or sensory or intellectual impairment. In the first place, we offer the underlying conceptual framework that derives from analysing recent research and publications on the theme, so as to discuss the competitive advantage of developing accessible destinations, in line with tendencies in tourist demands. Secondly, we take the matter further by analysing instances of good practice and give relevance to the innovative nature of on-going projects, thus contributing to their dissemination. We see such dissemination as a means to enhance the development of accessible tourism and as a pedagogical tool to make providers and the tourists themselves, even those without a disability, aware of need to dissipate the prejudices and stereotypes that are still to be found in society.