Moscomtourism tested a tourist excursion route for the disabled
People with disabilities are increasingly making tourist trips – this is a global trend, ensuring the growth of which, the hospitality industry is improving the infrastructure of accommodation and excursion services for this special group of tourists. Moscow has not stayed away from the global trend and is actively developing the accessibility of hotels, museums and other facilities for low-mobility groups of tourists.
Back in the middle of 2011, the Committee on Tourism and Hotel Management of the city of Moscow held the first discussion round table with the participation of representatives of the All-Russian Society of Disabled Persons, tour operators, museums, experts, which allowed to outline the range of Moscow’s problems in this area and outline ways to solve them. Since then, much has been done in the capital. Moscomtourism issued a practical manual “Barrier-free tourism in Moscow”, which gave an impetus to the development of this segment of the tourist market, the press service of the Ministry. Many objects of tourist show in Moscow - museums, exhibition and concert halls, sports facilities - are already fully ready to receive people with disabilities. The barrier-free environment, in particular, has already been created by the Retro Train projects and the Radisson Royal flotilla on all flights. More than 60 Moscow hotels available for booking in the most popular among individual tourists global online system Booking.com, today offer special rooms for disabled people. Finally, in April of this year, Moskomtourism published a unique guidebook “Tourist Moscow without barriers” in Russian, English German and French, which contains 5 tourist routes and 5 excursions to Moscow museums.
The event, which took place in the capital on April 18, was devoted to the practical testing of the route and an excursion from this guidebook - a tour of the Tretyakov Gallery in Lavrushinsky Lane and the tourist route from Tretyakovka to Bolotnaya Square.
Testing began with the Tretyakov Gallery, where tourists - representatives of the All-Russian Society of Disabled People - were delivered by a specially equipped bus. A pleasant surprise for tourists was the spacious elevator of the gallery, which can accommodate up to 15 wheelchair users at the same time (specially equipped stairs, by the way, in this museum and its Engineering Building, too). Disabled people without any problems inspected several halls of Tretyakovka and the same elevator, accompanied by volunteers from the Tourist Volunteer Center of Moscow, went down to continue on the route. The participants were welcomed by Irina Rudenko, Deputy Chairman of the Committee on Tourism and Hotel Management of the City of Moscow, who noted the special, practical significance of today’s event, and Alexander Bavelsky, Chairman of the Board of the Autonomous Non-Profit Organization for the Protection of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities International Academy of Accessibility and Universal Design. All the tourists who took part in the action received as a gift from Moscomtourism a variety of thematic guides to Moscow.
Further, the route continued to Bolotnaya Square, with an inspection of the legendary House on the embankment, Luzhkov Bridge, the monument to I. Repin and the sculptural composition of M. Shemyakin. At all stages of the route, the disabled were accompanied by a story about Moscow sights by Olga Telegina, a tour guide accredited by Moscow Tourism, as well as volunteers - students of Moscow universities. However, their help was not needed: all the objects of the route were perfectly accessible, including the bridge over the river and the sculptural group “Children are victims of adult vices”, to which a wheelchair-walker can approach for inspection almost closely.
According to Sergey Shpilko, Chairman of the Committee on Tourism and Hotel Management of the City of Moscow, “this practice of live, direct testing by low-mobility tourists of excursion routes of the capital is very relevant: it is important that sightseeing of our city is available to them not on paper, but in reality.” According to the head of Moskomtourism, the Committee, together with the VOI, will continue such events in the future, first testing routes and excursions of a fresh guide, and then expanding the range of testing and involving new tourist programs for people with limited mobility.
Source: Turizm.ru