see http://www.sydneyforall.com/index.html
This website portal – providing collaborative marketing opportunities for businesses offering accessible destination experiences for people with disabilities – received a highly commended award in the 2009 UTS Trailblazer competition. Named Sydney for All, it was developed by UTS Associate Professor Simon Darcy and Bruce Cameron, from Easy Access Australia, in response to the constraints on urban tourism opportunities for people with disabilities.
“Simple things like having a holiday become so complex for people with disabilities because of the structural constraints of the environment and service attitudes that they experience,” says Darcy.
Since the competition, Darcy and his research team have worked in collaboration with Destination NSW to commercialise the project and launch the portal as a permanent feature of the company’s online tourism offerings.
“The commercialisation is of the underlying intellectual property behind translating accessible experiences into meaningful web-based content,” says Darcy. The academic now has an ongoing role in providing advice to Destination NSW and continues to develop new modules and content for the portal.
“We have created a tremendous public good for people with disability from Australia and overseas who now have free access to a resource to assist in travel planning and enjoying the wonderful features of Sydney.