Accessible Tourism and the Role of Public Transport Provision: Comparing the Access to Attractions for Tourists with and without Disabilities in Bangkok

Abstract

Tourism is acknowledged as one of the world's most important economic sectors, responsible for a significant share of global GDP. Transport is a key element for this industry, as one of the factors that affects the attractiveness of a tourist destination. Worldwide, it is estimated that more than 130 million people have some sort of disability that requires the use of a wheelchair and that number will tend to increase, due to the rapidly aging population. The provision of wheelchair-friendly transportation, particularly in the public sphere, is essential to ensuring access to tourist attractions. In that context, in this paper we aim to assess how the absence of fully accessible public transportation affects the tourism of wheelchair users. To perform this study, the city of Bangkok was chosen, which ranked as number one in the list of most visited destinations in 2018. As the literature shows that tourists usually prefer to use railways rather than buses when they are traveling to unfamiliar places, this study considered only the urban rail systems in the analysis. In order to evaluate the influence that the provision of wheelchair-friendly transportation has on the access to tourism, the most visited tourist attractions, as well as their locations within the city's municipal area, were identified and sorted. Data on the number of lines and stations, accessibility status of each station, and its distance from the tourist destination were also collected. The geographic information system tool was then used to analyze the station coverage. The results showed that the lack of accessibility in some stations or their distance from the destinations can create inequality of access. Moreover, insufficient provision of accessibility is a critical issue that can inhibit the tourism of people in wheelchairs, which in turn can lead to a potential economic loss for the sector.