The State of Web Accessibility for tourists with disabilities: a comparative study between different tourism supply agents

Abstract

Purpose

This study intends to examine the web accessibility of three tourism supply agents (hotels, travel agents and museums). The results obtained contribute to observing whether there are differences in levels of web accessibility among these tourism supply agents and, based on the problems identified, suggest strategies to overcome these problems.

Methods

To evaluate the level of web accessibility of tourism supply agents, two automatic online tools (AccessMonitor and TAW), which consider Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), version 2.0, were used. To identify differences among the supply tourism agents in terms of the level of web accessibility, statistical tests (ANOVA and Kruskal–Wallis) were used.

Results

All the tourism supply agents analysed reveal considerable problems related to web accessibility. The perceivable and robust principles are the two principles of WGAG 2.0 with the greatest number of failures. However, differences among the supply agents analysed are observed. Museums present the highest level of web accessibility, while travel agents have the lowest. Therefore, it is necessary to implement improvements in tourism websites to overcome informational constraints that many people with disabilities (PwD) face in tourism activities.

Conclusions

Due to the central role of the Internet for people with and without disabilities, this study highlights barriers that should be eliminated to facilitate the travel decision-making process, especially for PwD. Consequently, it can contribute to a greater number of people being able to participate in tourism activities, improving their well-being and rehabilitation.

Implications for rehabilitation

• The participation in tourism activities contributes to improve health, quality-of-life and well-being of all people.

• For people with disabilities (PwD) to be able to travel, without constraints, access to online information needs to be provided.

• The identification of the level of web accessibility of tourism supply agents provides important guidelines to improve the websites, facilitating the travel tourism planning of PwD.

• If informational barriers to access tourism activities are eliminated, the participation of PwD in tourism activities will tend to increase, and consequently improvements in their well-being, health and rehabilitation will happen.

Keywords:

• Web accessibility
• people with disabilities (PwD)
• museums
• hotels
• travel agencies
• WCAG 2.0
• TAW
• AccessMonitor
• well-being

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was financially supported by the project POCI-01-0145-FEDER-030376, funded by FEDER, through COMPETE2020 – PROGRAMA OPERACIONAL COMPETITIVIDADE E INTERNACIONALIZAÇÃO (POCI), and by national funds, through FCT/MCTES.