Accessible tourism: The Seatrac on the Athenian Riviera

Abstract

Accessible tourism is about making it easy for everyone to enjoy tourism experiences and it has greatly increased over the years. In the European Union, accessible tourism generates €400 billion revenues per annum and is expected to grow annually by 1% for the coming years (European Commission, 2029). Greece, as a well-known tourist destination, has a government priority to ensure access to tourism for all. Towards this direction, a Seatrac mechanism has been developed during the last years to offer unassisted sea access to people with disabilities and mobility issues. For this purpose, the paper focuses on the Seatrac located in the Athenian Riviera. For its better examination, a qualitative and quantitative analysis was conducted, with the methodological approach to be based on questionnaires. Among our findings is that Seatrac has been characterized as an efficient tool for citizens and tourists with disability problems in many aspects of their lives, as well as in seaside activities. Since the academic literature is extremely limited on this topic, our findings are considered useful to the travelers with disabilities as well as to policy makers in the public and private sector.

JEL classifications: E290, L830, O100, R150

Keywords: Accessible tourism, Seatrac, Greece, Athenian Riviera, mobility issues