Inclusivity and responsible tourism: designing a trademark for a National Park Area

Responsible tourism provides a particular lens by which to consider how to improve the sustainability of tourism with the ambition to enhance the positive impacts of mainstream tourism, while reducing the negative ones. In this view, facilitating travel for people with disabilities represents an exceptional opportunity, and the idea that what is accessible to one traveler may be very difficult to access to another one with a different type of disability, makes inclusive tourism a relevant part of the global sustainable tourism agenda. The present study aims to provide empirical evidence on the adoption of the principles of responsible and inclusive tourism within a national park area. To this end, the paper discusses the case of the “E-Parks” research project which investigated the area of the Gargano National Park (Italy) with a special focus on the problems faced by tourists with disabilities, and on the improvements to enable all tourists to have the full enjoyment of their tourism experience. The study contributes, therefore, to enriching the empirical literature on inclusive and responsible tourism that has its application in the design of trademark procedural guidelines enabling tourists with different disabilities to access a protected natural area.