RONDA (Malaga - Andalucia), a City for All

"Ronda, a City for All." Turismo de Ronda works for the City of Tajo river become an affordable destination for people with disabilities ....

Worldwide, 600 million people with disabilities, in Europe there are around 50 million and Spain has four million. In Ronda, 10% of the population falls in this group. "It is a tourist with a medium and high purchasing power and a lot of free time to travel." This has described the Councillor for Tourism, Maribel Morales. However, it is not just an economic issue but also social: "The disabled person looking for autonomy, the possibility of touring without relying on another person to the extent possible," said the mayor of Ronda, aware that the effort in accessibility gives more quality for tourism in the city.

This is an emerging sector of the first magnitude that brings together people with permanent disability (mental, sensory and physical), temporary disabilities and people over 60 years, which have increased in recent years their participation in the tourism market. Have much free time, substantial economic rents and great desire to travel, which also contributes to the seasonal break. With this background, it is not surprising that the tourism industry is striving to be accessible.

The International Tourism Fair (FITUR) showcased for the first visible efforts on accessibility. Thus, the delegation showed the foreground Ronda tourist city for blind people using Braille.
Similarly, the group of people with disabilities will soon have a guide that lets you know the level of accessibility of monuments, restaurants, hotels, streets, shops ... It is the result of diagnosis made by the Royal Board on Disability for the council. We analyzed 142 sections of streets in the historic district, 23 hotels, 52 restaurants and 24 monuments.

In this sense, it would be interesting to install a new tourist information point in the historic center, so that people with disabilities to have the plane in Braille or the Accessibility Guide, for example. A second tourist information office, to share the work with the one located at Blas Infante, may be a good idea. Between the Plaza Duquesa de Parcent and the District of San Francisco could be a strategic point. It is almost inconceivable that a tourist who has a disability have to move to Blas Infante to get this information after landing in the city through the bus station or the different car parks, mostly away from the historic center, and walk several streets to connect with the tourist circuit.


Mobile Application
When approaching a deaf person to a monument or area of interest can be downloaded on your mobile or portable device a video in which a sign language interpreter will provide information Spanish. It is another initiative by Turismo de Ronda, S. A. To be realized. The hearing impaired can download an interactive visual guide to your own mobile using wireless technology. The videos would have a duration of two to three minutes and would be subtitled. The new technologies thus play a key role to achieve real integration of the collective.
Ronda The delegation also plans to design a tourist route fully adapted for disabled people in the Old Town. This will include miniature reproductions in bronze of the main monuments with inscriptions in Braille that blind people can read.

Arab Baths and “Acinipo”
As for the monuments, Morales has referred to the work done to make available the Arab Baths, the best preserved thermal complex in Spain (fourteenth century). Historically, the back of the monument has been closed to the public and now can be visited. Space has been extended towards the visitor and recovered the wheel, in the old system used for the abstraction of water, and tanneries, where the skins were treated.

In the same way, Acinipo could become the primary site accessible for people with disabilities. The Minister for Tourism, with whom the mayor Ronda will meet in the coming weeks, and showed his interest in this project and now the rest of initiatives.

On the other hand, have already been awarded the work to build the first youth hostel in Ronda, a building that will join the tourism infrastructure and will be fully accessible to persons with disabilities. The project will be a pioneer, as the mayor of Tourism. The intention of the Town Council that the group is also occupy the jobs being generated. The hostel has 15 rooms and be built next to the IES Martin Rivero.
On the other hand, the Consistory has reserved 300,000 euros for the second regional measure against crisis (Protect plan) to the elimination of architectural barriers. This project joins municipal intention of creating a Centre for Disability and accessibility training momentum.

Finally, the Councillor for Tourism Cities Project has pointed out H and A, which aim to achieve a comprehensive and structured action of the City of Ronda, Cuenca, Castiglion Fiorentino (Italy) and Landerneau (France) and companies in these cities involved in the sector tourism and are interested in working accessibility. Morales has referred to upcoming meetings with officials from these cities. The latest edition of Fitur also served to recover the twinning with Cuenca.
In short, it seems that for some time, city leaders have echoed the harshest critics of the tourism industry has always pointed to the need to diversify supply. New segments such as wine, nature tourism, with the addition of the potential of the region, tourism conferences and meetings, and now the bid to become accessible destination, tourism fuel the preponderance of Ronda in the sector.


http://www.turismoderonda.es/