La Garrotxa, a tourism destination for everyone

Today, fortunately there are many regulations in the sector that have responded to the need to adapt transport, infrastructure and services to suit everyone’s needs. For example, all the new infrastructures or new facilities that are built from the public sector have to abide by these rules.

But, beyond the set minimum standards, in La Garrotxa the public sector has also undertaken actions that are considered to be important in order to further improve accessibility in the region. There have been different actions: greenways have been built, ramps, railings and signals have been added on public roads, procedures have been established to grant permits to drive a vehicle through restricted access roads, and even a Joëlette chair has been purchased, an all-terrain one-wheeled chair that enables anyone with reduced mobility or disability to move in the natural environment.

The private sector has also worked to respond to the widest possible spectrum of audiences. In this regard, the work carried out by the 50 companies of Innovation and Product Service of Turisme Garrotxa is particularly noteworthy, as they applied specific measures in their establishments to comply with the improvement plans developed with the technical team of Turisme Garrotxa.

Some companies have chosen to improve the information of the food products they serve, referring to the allergens they may contain; others have worked on improving their infrastructure, and the guides have had the opportunity to train as drivers of the Joëlette chair.

And there is still a third sector: public-private, the case of the managing entity of the tourist destination. Turisme Garrotxa has adapted its website to the destination both technically and in its content, so that everyone can access the information about the territory and tourist stakeholders, making a real effort in delivering precise and accurate information on the degree of accessibility of all resources.

In order to make it possible, at the beginning of 2018 Turisme Garrotxa added information about the degree of accessibility - of both public and private tourism assets- throughout its website, apart from including a summary of all this information in a specific new section.

For all these reasons, the main axis of the development strategy of La Garrotxa for the 2016-2020 period, created within the framework of the European Charter for Sustainable Tourism, is precisely accessibility. Turisme Garrotxa has already begun to work on this objective conducting a study on the degree of accessibility of the destination. The conclusions of this analysis will be the basis on which to plan a strategy for improvement, solving the weaknesses and/or incidences detected. A tool to allow the managers of the destination to coordinate, prioritize actions and look for the necessary financing to be able to implement these improvements.