Literature profiling on tourism, impairment and disability issues: A future directional guide

Abstract

Background: South African tourism is evolving towards accommodating disabled people. Within the same standpoint, the country receives ageing tourists as a major international tourism market from the Global North, whose access needs are similar to disabled people. The present article explored ‘blind and blank spots’ in the extant literature on tourism–impairment disability as a synchronised field within academic research to provide theoretical insights and gaps for the disability-tourism research community to consider the composite concept instead of individualistic concepts.Objective: The objectives were: (1) to track knowledge development from 1990 to 2018 using a narrative literature review approach and (2) to justify future research areas previously overlooked and understudied within a tourism–impairments–disability perspective in South Africa and beyond.Method: A narrative literature review search strategy was used. Keywords and synonymous terms were used in electronic searches of Scopus, ScienceDirect, Sabinet Online, Emerald Insights Journals, African Journals and Google Scholar. The literature screening process used predetermined inclusion and exclusion criteria for the data source. Content thematic analysis was adopted for the present study.Results: The findings reflect a dearth of tourism–impairments–disability research in South Africa. Nonetheless, there is an observable pattern of slow growth in research after the 2000s. The extant literature is skewed towards the tourism supply side and sporadic on tourism demand (tourist experiences), education and skills development.Conclusions: It is clear that the absence of scientifically developed knowledge on disability–impairments–tourism affects inclusive tourism growth. Therefore, the research community should consider disability-inclusive (accessible) tourism management, human resources and marketing practices and knowledge for teaching material in future research.Contribution: The article mapped and provided insights that sets a research agenda for tourism research community to see the gaps in literature and/or knowledge for accessible tourism (disability-inclusive) tourism to be a game changer as found by UNWTO (2020) with low-resources setting. Thereby setting a tone towards call for more research that can uncover an economic narrative that shows a relationship between skills development, labour and consumer markets for the participation of diverse disabled persons as such is shown as understudied in Low-to-Middle income earning countries like South Africa.

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“…Es de este modo como surge el rechazo a la inclusión de lo extraño, de lo "otro" que no forma parte del propio circulo. Se produce un encuentro dialéctico de dos cosmovisiones turísticas que se resisten porque son opuestas (Levinas, 2000), generando una atmósfera donde los integrantes de uno de esos mundos surgen como el "Otro". Un "Otro" que, con su diferencia, contemplada como deficiencia, propicia la imagen de la victimización (Theodosíadis, 1996).…”

“…Se parte de la premisa de que la discapacidad es una construcción social, no es la deficiencia que impide a las personas con discapacidad acceder o no a un determinado ámbito social, sino los obstáculos y barreras que crea la misma sociedad, que limitan e impiden que las personas con discapacidad se incluyan, decidan o diseñen con autonomía su propio plan de vida en igualdad de oportunidades. (Victoria, 2013;817) Desde un prisma antropológico, examinamos las consecuencias de las relaciones de alteridad, y su estrecha relación con lo extraño, lo próximo y lo lejano que podemos proyectar al ámbito de las experiencias de las personas con discapacidad cuando hacen turismo, aceptando la existencia de otros mundos dando así cabida a la diversidad (Levinas, 2000).…”

The Impact of Career Education on Students' Labour Market Perceptions

“…The purpose of a narrative review is to extract relevant data from previous literature in order to provide an overview of the field by identifying, selecting, evaluating, and synthesizing their narrative component (Pugh et al, 2018). The narrative literature search strategy enables the author to efficiently gather and analyze data (Eseadi, 2023b;Eseadi & Diale, 2023b;Kim et al, 2020;Makuyana et al, 2022;Moola et al, 2022). To collect and analyze relevant data for a narrative review, the researcher identified and synthesized information from various sources, including academic journals and conference proceedings.…”

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“…This model facilitates expert input and consensus-building, offering a structured method for promoting inclusive practices within the industry. Additionally, studies focusing on sustainable tourism development have proposed frameworks for implementing smart community initiatives within tourism contexts [24]. These frameworks emphasize the importance of sustainability and community engagement in tourism practices, aligning with the principles of inclusivity and responsible tourism.…”