North American Travel Market Study

Canada - U.S. Study Profiles Travellers Looking for Accessibility

Mar 11, 2008

The size and preferences of the accessible tourism market in North America were described in a July 2007 report from Ontario, Canada, based on U.S. and Canadian research.

A report by the Ontario (Canada) Ministry of Tourism dated July 2007 describes the importance of the accessible travel market in Canada and the U.S.

Millions of North American Travellers Say Accessibility is Important

In both Canada and the U.S., travellers say that accessibility matters to them when they make their travel plans. For 1.2 million Canadians and 16.1 million Americans, accessibility is "highly important". Another 3.2 million Canadians and 32.5 million Americans rate it as "somewhat important".

These numbers amount to 21.4% of Canadian travellers, and an even greater 27.6% of American travellers.

Accessibility and Tourist Activities

In comparing a list of 25 popular tourist activities such as shopping, sightseeing, fishing, sunbathing, and swimming, both the tourists seeking accessibility and those who did not consider it as important tended to rate certain things in the top 5 or 10.

For Canadians, 8 of the top 10 activities for the accessible travel group were also in the top 10 of the general group. For Americans, the top 5 were identical on both lists.

Camping

Within the accessible travel group, 410,000 Canadians and 4.6 million Americans participated in camping, and of these, a large number used tents (52% and 40% respectively). Even so, the accessible travel group as a whole, compared to the general group. prefers RVs, trailers and other non-tent accommodation when camping.

In other words, lots of accessible travellers like to camp. Many of them camp in tents. But when comparing accessible travellers and the general group, the accessible travellers have a stronger preference for motor homes, vans, tent trailers and RVs than the general group. (We could infer that in the general group, of those who like to camp, perhaps 60% like to tent - some number higher than the 52% in the Canadian accessible travel group).

What Accessible Travellers Want

Whether or not accessibility is important to them, all travellers want the same benefits from travel:

However, travellers who are looking for accessibility also want these benefits more than the general group does:

The study report is called A Profile of Travellers Looking for Accessible Travel Destinations, subtitled An Overview of North American Travellers based on the 2006 Travel Activities and Motivations Study (TAMS). It was published by the Tourism Research Unit of the Ontario Ministry of Tourism, July 2007.

Photo credit: Irmgard, original label "Engstligenalp Wheelchair path". Reproduced under GNU Free Documentation License.

The copyright of the article North American Travel Market Study in Disabled Travelers Services is owned by Jill Browne. Permission to republish North American Travel Market Study in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.