ACCESSIBLE project – second workshop and project meeting

The University of Zagreb, Faculty of Economics & Business hosted the third workshop and the meeting of all project partners – the University of Pecs (Hungary), Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań (Poland), the University of Zagreb (Croatia) and Sapientia University (Romania). The meeting took place from December 11 to 13, 2024 and focused on the final activities within the WPs. As the course book has been edited and is to be published, the partners have started to create teaching materials and study modules. Upcoming dissemination activities were also discussed, with all partners agreeing on the collaboration on publications. The host also organised visits to the Zagreb City Museum and the Typhlological Museum, as well as a tour of the city centre of Zagreb.

ACCESSIBLE project – Third dissemination event in Poland

The third dissemination event of the project took place on 6 December 2024 in Dziekanowice (Poland) and was organized by staff members of the Faculty of Geographical and Geological Sciences at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań. The project results were presented at a dissemination event to a group of over 60 people involved in supporting people with disabilities. The active participation of the participants and the constructive discussions showed how important it is to promote cooperation between different stakeholders in the field of accessible tourism. The event highlighted the potential of education and best practices to drive meaningful change and ensure that tourism becomes more inclusive and accessible for people with disabilities. The insights and feedback gained during the meeting will undoubtedly contribute to the further development and implementation of solutions to support accessible tourism in Central Europe.

ACCESSIBLE project – Dissemination event

Dissemination for the Promotion of Barrier-Free Tourism
Tourism Without Limits – The Tourism Integration of People with Disabilities

On November 22, 2024, the dissemination event of the project ACCESSIBLE – Developing an Innovative Educational Method for Accessible Tourism in Central Europe (2022-2-HU01-KA220-HED-000099410) was held at the Miercurea-Ciuc campus of Sapientia Hungarian University of Transylvania.
The aim of the dissemination event was to present the results of the project, during which the participants gained a comprehensive understanding of the project’s objectives, the milestones of the research process, and its outcomes. Dr. Benedek Nagy, the project leader, introduced the project, followed by a lecture by Dr. Blanka Bálint on the social significance and the perception of PWD participating in tourism and the results of the public survey. This was followed by a presentation by drd. Norbert Gergely on the changes in the disabled population in Romania and the deficiencies in accessibility, particularly concerning commercial accommodations. Dr. Ottilia György then presented the theoretical background of barrier-free tourism and introduced the educational materials created during the project.
The professional part of the event concluded with a roundtable discussion, where representatives of civil organizations and tourism companies discussed the state, opportunities, and challenges of barrier-free tourism. Topics included the accessibility of commercial accommodations, transportation, and wellness facilities. The participants also addressed legal requirements for accessibility and the practical shortcomings in their implementation.
In the second part of the roundtable, a successful example of accessibility was presented: a device offering skiing opportunities for people with mobility impairments. This was introduced by Emese Ruszuly and Attila Tóth from the Nurture in Nature initiative. The discussion covered both the operation of the device and the natural and infrastructural conditions required for its use.
 

ACCESSIBLE Project - Dissemination event in Zagreb

The first dissemination event of the ACCESSIBLE project took place on June 13, 2024 and was organised by the Faculty of Economics and Business Zagreb (UNIZG) as the host institution. Professor Nevenka Čavlek gave detailed information about the ACCESSIBLE project, its goals and partners, the expected end result and the research plan. This introduction was followed by the detailed report of Associate Professor Vanja Krajinović on the research results of the 211 respondents (people with disabilities). The presentation was focused on the results of the primary research and participants were given detailed explanations of the findings. This was particularly interesting for all participants as previous research in Croatia did not include such a large sample nor was it as comprehensive in terms of different aspects of accessible tourism development. Therefore, these results were discussed with great interest by all participants in the last part of the workshop, as they all had different perspectives on this topic, either from professional or personal experience. After the researchers' presentations about the project, almost all participants took part in the discussion and numerous interesting questions were raised – starting with the organisation of travel for people with disabilities, their specific requirements in terms of universal design, potentials and reasons for universal design within society, specific social issues related to the quality of life of people with disabilities in Croatia, requirements for sports activities, etc. The participants were satisfied with the quality and content of the results presented and expressed their interest in further research phases within this project.

ACCESSIBLE project - Pilot training

Testing of the new module-based curriculum developed as part of the ACCESSIBLE project has begun as part of the Accessible Tourism course at University of Pécs Faculty of Business and Economics. At the first pilot training of the 4-class brief module, Tibor Gonda and Zoltán Raffay (Associate Professors of the UoP) discussed the special needs of people with disabilities (PwDs) in addition to the theoretical knowledge. The associates of the Kerek Világ Foundation (Zsuzsa, Evelin and Balázs) also took part in the pilot event. Evelin has been blind since birth and Balázs lives with physical disability. Both helped the participants a lot to recognise the special needs of PwD’s by talking honestly, authentically and in an interesting way about their difficulties and joys. The students participated in the lesson with great interest, empathy, and interactivity.

ACCESSIBLE Project - Dissemination event – Orfű 25th May 2024

The first year of the project was so fruitful, that the professional team of UPÉCS decided to hold an added dissemination event to disseminate the project results of the first period among professionals and people/organisations which deal with disabled people. The event was held in Orfű, because of the exemplary attitude of the local community and the local government towards accessible tourism. 
Lecturers, PhD students, leaders of the municipalities and NGOs involved in accessible tourism participated in the dissemination event, whom it is important to be informed about the research on tourist habits of people with disabilities and about the innovative teaching methodology which will be developed in the ACCESSIBLE project.
Primarily the results of the 200-person survey were presented, but the goals, activities, and planned results were also interpreted. The professional team of UPÉCS and the participants of the event discussed about protentional collaborations which can foster the widespread use of the project results.

ACCESSIBLE Project - First Project Meeting And Workshop In Poznan

As part of the Erasmus+ project "Accessible Tourism", meetings and workshops took place in Poznań (Poland) from March 10 to 12, 2024. Partners from the University of Pecs (Hungary), Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań (Poland), the University of Zagreb (Croatia) and Sapientia University (Romania) took part. At the meeting, the results of the research carried out on the possibilities of developing accessible tourism and the possibilities of publishing articles as part of dissemination activities were discussed. The partners' commitments regarding the publication of the course book on accessible tourism to be published by the end of the project were also defined. All future activities related to the analysis of research data conducted in all four partner countries, publication of publications and dissemination of results were also agreed. The host of the meeting, Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan (Poland), also organized workshops and guided tours to raise awareness of the importance of accessibility in destinations, and workshops and guided tours were organized at the SOSW for blind children in Owińska and at Invisible Street in Poznan.

ACCESSIBLE Project - Kick-Off Meeting In Pécs

The kick-off meeting of the ACCESSIBLE project was held on 8th and 9th of June 2023 in Pécs. 

This 2-year project aims at creating an innovative, novel teaching material for filling the existing knowledge gap of students learning tourism and giving them a holistic approach how to serve people with disabalities in an effective way.
After a warm welcome of project leader, all partners (University of Zagreb, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznan, Universitatea Sapientia din Municipiul Cluj-Napoca) gave a professional description of themselves, their backgrounds, and presented their personal motivations and competences related to the project objectives. 
Partners received a general overview (general objectives and planned project results) of the ACCESSSIBLE project. The aims of the meeting were to review the timetable of the project, to discuss all the project activities and delegate leaders and deadlines to each task to ensure all indicator will have been achieved by the end of the project. 
Partners discussed in detail the activities of the workpackage 2: collection of the best-practices, systematic literature analysis, situation assessment and analysis. The preliminary prepared questionnaire was completed based on the partners suggestions.
During the meeting the general management process, the financial issues were presented, and the dissemination activities were discussed as well.
The ACCESSIBLE consortium will meet in Poznan in March 2024 to discuss the research results and the next steps of the project implementation.