What is the problem you intend to solve?

The organization phase is widely described as the biggest barrier to travel for people with motor disabilities. Information is not centralized and search tools are not adapted to a tourist context. As a result, people with reduced mobility reduce the number of trips they make or even give up traveling.

Platforms already exist, which gather accessible places in Switzerland. However, these platforms do not take into account individual mobility constraints and are not adapted to a tourist context. There are also turnkey stays and group stays. In the first case, the stays are not very flexible and often too expensive. In the second case, they force users to stay in a circle of people with reduced mobility. In both cases, the offer is restricted and based only on their mobility constraint, ignoring their personal preferences.

Why do you think it needs to be solved?

The social inclusion of this part of the population also involves leisure activities. Offering them the possibility to plan their stays in a simple way contributes to this.

It is also necessary to promote local tourism in order to face the current ecological challenges. It is not acceptable that a whole part of the population renounces to make stays in their own countries for lack of information and adapted planning tools.

The accessible tourism market is extremely receptive to all solutions that can facilitate their stays. The market for accessible tourism in Europe is estimated at 89 million euros in 2025. It is necessary for Swiss destinations to equip themselves with effective tools in order to capture a share of this market.

How will you solve it?

We are developing a tool that allows users to plan a stay in Switzerland based on their mobility constraints and personal preferences (region, budgets, type of activities, types of restaurants, etc.). At the moment, we use accessibility data from Pro Infirmis, and tourism data that we retrieve via the Trip Advisor API and Google server requests.

In practice, the user enters information about his mobility constraints and preferences. Ideas for trips are proposed to them, which they can then personalize.

In the future, we will enrich the model with new data, such as open data from the National Tourist Office and the Swiss Federal Railways. We are also considering research projects to define standards for the collection of data from public spaces and pathways.

Team

• Elodie Auer
• Denatsha Shan
• Aurélie Savioz
• Alain Fresco
• Quentin Girard
• Sinan Ucak

Contact and website

• Email
• Website
• GitHub