It is my great pleasure to recommend Accessible Tourism: Concepts and Issues as a fine addition to academic writing and industry practice. While the economic importance of tourism is undeniable within developing and developed nations, tourism is also an agent for social change by promoting human rights and sustainability. Accessible Tourism provides a wonderful link between human rights, sustainability and tourism, affirming that one cannot exist without the other.

This important book connects the economic growth potential of tourism with a very important area of social change, an ageing population and increasing rates of disability. For tourism to be a true social agent of change, equal opportunities for all society groups to participate independently and with dignity in tourism activities must be assured.

The World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) works to promote ‘responsible, sustainable and universally accessible tourism’. In particular, Article 7 of the UNWTO Global Code of Ethics for Tourism approved by the UN on the ‘Right to Tourism’ states that ‘family, youth, student and senior tourism and tourism for people with disabilities, should be encouraged and facilitated’. Accessible Tourism: Concepts and Issues progresses our knowledge and understanding in this important area and supports both tourism destinations and organizations as they work towards total tourism accessibility.