Tourism for All is a consultancy company for all players in the travel & tourism industry and beyond - cities, countries, accommodations, museums, transport companies, airlines, airports, travel agencies, tour operators, booking agencies, tourist offices, training institutes tourism, publishers of travel guides and many more.
Tourism for All advises and assists the tourism industry to develop and improve the concept of Tourism for All in all products, services and destinations, thus increasing the turnover.
The consultancy consists of all topics within the tourism for all concept:
Accessibility
- assessing the infrastructure and environment
- analyzing the weak and the strong points
- providing the criteria to improve the accessibility
Marketing and Communication
- advice how to provide the right information for the clients
- making your website accessible
- information on the best media channels for publicity
Staff training
- training all staff to welcome all guests with special needs
- awareness raising on accessibility of the infrastructure and environment
Besides the consultancy Tourism for All offers trips to many exotic destinations worldwide. Especially the tailor-made trips, in which TfA is the travel architect for dream travels, attract a lot of attention.
Portfolio Tourism for All / Elske de Vries
- Developing the ‘Tourism for All Concept’ (Mobility International Brussels)
- Project Brussels Accessible (assessing buildings of Brussels on accessibility, such as hotels, museums, theaters, public transport)
- Amsterdam Accessible Tourism (assessing all tourism buildings)
- Amsterdam Sport Accommodations (assessing all sport facilities)
- The Hague Accessible Tourism (assessing all tourism buildings)
- Barcelona, Design for All / Mobility International (organizing the European ‘Design for All Conference’)
- Independent Living (European Commission), program on Independent Living
- Accessible Tourism Izmir Turkey (Hotel Altin Yunus)
- Accessible Tourism Izmir (Omerland, Holiday Resort)
- Setting up Care Units for disabled tourists in Spain, Catalunya
- Integrating disabled youngsters in Youth for Europe Projects
- Participating in many projects within the Helios Programme of the European Commission
- Setting up and managing Holiday Information Center AccessWise (Arnhem, The Netherlands)
- Setting up TT-pedia, Portal for Accessible Tourism
Elske de Vries:
- Was for many years Project Manager for Mobility International in Brussels, is founder of Mobility International Flanders and of Travel & Tourism For All, International Foundation.
- Participated in European projects like “You Too” and European Commission working groups like “Independent Living and Tourism For All”, in the European Commission project Cost 335 (for the accessibility of European railway stations and trains) and so on and so forth.
- Participates in ECA, European Concept for Accessibilty(www.eca.lu), and in ENAT, European Network for Accessible Tourism(www.accessibletourism.org) and other organizations.
Elske de Vries - Grandmother of Tourism for All
Elske’s motivation to become involved with Tourism for All from the very beginning:
“I have personally experienced what it is like not to be able to participate in the good things of life. Our family consisted of my father, disabled by Multiple sclerosis and Parkinson's disease - my mother, who was visually impaired - my brother, who was severely physically disabled with cerebral palsy and I, the only one not disabled.
Traveling - in a time when the word ‘accessibility’ practically had no meaning - was not feasible for our family… with two wheelchairs the whole world was inaccessible!
In my vision travel and tourism are ‘the icing on the coffee’! These nice things usually appear at the very end, well after more ‘serious’ matters such as rehabilitation and schooling..... while travel and tourism can add so much fun to life.
Living with a disability and yet extend your horizons, it must be possible!”
