How diverse is hotel website accessibility? A study in the central region of Portugal using web diagnostic tools

Abstract

Accessible tourism is a very important growth market that should not be ignored by the tourism industry, not only due to legal obligations and social responsibility but also because of business opportunities. However, people with special needs face various constraints in accessing tourism products. The absence of accessible information is one of the main barriers that people with special needs face when they intend to travel. The Internet represents one of the most important information sources in tourism. However, a limited number of studies examine the use of the Internet in the accessible tourism market, specifically website accessibility. To extend knowledge in this field, this study aims to analyse the website accessibility of hotels and Pousadas de Portugal located in the Central Region of Portugal. A sample of 306 websites was analysed based on Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0, using automatic web diagnostic tools (AccessMonitor and TAW). This analysis was performed considering the A, AA and AAA conformance levels of WCAG. Findings reveal that the web accessibility level of the hotels analysed is low, with the ‘Perceivable’ and ‘Robust’ guidelines being the most critical. Moreover, there are differences in the web accessibility levels in terms of hotel category. Contrary to what was expected, the higher category hotels present the lowest level of web accessibility. These results can help hotel managers and web designers to improve communication with an important growth market – accessible tourism.

Digital accessibility of smart cities - tourism for all and reducing inequalities: Tourism Agenda 2030

“…These findings coincide with other tourism studies (Aizpurua et al , 2015; Eusébio et al , 2020; García-Santiago and Olvera-Lobo, 2021; Michopoulou and Buhalis, 2013). Accessibility factors that demonstrated a lower percentage of compliance with international criteria within the literature included perceptible and robust (Eusébio et al , 2020; Silveiro et al , 2019; Teixeira et al , 2021). These findings were consistent with our research for robust, although operable also achieved a lower percentage of compliance in this study.…”

“…The relevance of digital accessibility has progressively been recognized in academic discussion and destination management. Several aspects of Web accessibility in the tourism sector have been developed, including the analysis of digital accessibility in official tourism offices (Casais and Castro, 2021; Domínguez Vila et al , 2019; Lestari et al , 2019; Shi, 2006; Singh et al , 2021), of websites of travel agencies (Eusébio et al , 2020; Silveiro et al , 2019), its adoption by accommodation providers (Fontanet Nadal and Jaume Mayol, 2011; Teixeira et al , 2021; Williams and Rattray, 2005), restaurants (Aizpurua et al , 2015), museums (Poole, 2001) and mobile applications (Fernández-Díaz et al , 2021; Lestari et al , 2019; Madeira et al , 2021; Ribeiro et al , 2018). However, there is little research that focuses on analyzing digital accessibility compliance associated with smart tourism destinations, and even less comparing the levels of accessibility in the physical and digital dimensions.…”

“…Accessibility has taken center stage as a tool for inclusion and achieving tourism for all (Buhalis and Darcy, 2010; Darcy and Dickson, 2009; Rucci et al , 2021, 2022). The literature has also seen a shift in focus to digital accessibility in the past few years (Casais and Castro, 2021; Domínguez Vila et al , 2019; Eusébio et al , 2020; Fontanet Nadal and Jaume Mayol, 2011; Lestari et al , 2019; Shi, 2006; Silveiro et al , 2019; Singh et al , 2021; Teixeira et al , 2021; Williams and Rattray, 2005). In addition, accessibility is a complex concept that is still open to debate (Fernández-Díaz et al , 2021; Lestari et al , 2019; Madeira et al , 2021; Nitti, 2018; Ribeiro et al , 2018).…”

Integrated use of KOS and deep learning for data set annotation in tourism domain

“…Tons of information related to touristic and cultural heritage sites are nowadays available on the Internet. In particular, reviews of tourism amenities and sites posted online by tourists represent an emerging source of data to support tourism research (Johnson et al, 2012) as well as travelers (Ho et al, 2012;Fararni et al, 2021) and, more important, policy makers and administrators, who can leverage them to improve many aspects of the sites, such as the available services and their management (Teixeira et al, 2021;Zhang et al, 2021) or sustainability (Marchi et al, 2021;Prandi et al, 2021). In Italy the tourism sector generates more than 13% of the national gross domestic product, and it represents over 6% of the employed (WTO, 2018).…”

Innovation for People with Disabilities in Hospitality Industry: A Theoretical Approach

“…In terms of accessibility issues, research is related to online access to information resources [1][2][3][4][5][6], the limitations of individuals with disabilities in tourism activity [7][8][9][10][11], as well as the barriers that individuals with disabilities face [12,13]. Also, in terms of travel behavior issues, research is related to the analysis of the needs and motivations of people with disabilities [14][15][16][17][18], the evaluation of the behavior of tourists with disabilities [19][20][21][22][23], the evaluation of information sources for accommodation [24][25][26], and the evaluation of hospitality services in specific tourist destinations [27][28][29][30][31]. At this point, it should be underlined that the term "accessibility" does not only mean hotel facilities but also services and goods that enable people with disabilities to function autonomously in the environment [32].…”