Vietnam has nearly 8 million people with disabilities. Like everyone else, they always dream of travelling. Yet there are very few tours in Vietnam for people with disabilities. For many reasons, travel agencies are not very keen on these nearly 8 million “valued customers”.
Too many difficulties all around
Mr. Bruce Cameron, an Australian tourist, confided: “Before coming to Vietnam, what worried me most was not knowing whether the facilities here could meet the needs of wheelchair users. I sent an email asking for answers but received no reply”. That is the experience of a foreign visitor, and of many Vietnamese people with disabilities who want to explore this S-shaped country. “We have disabilities in our legs and really want to travel to explore the landscapes of some provinces and cities.
Usually, before each trip, travellers with disabilities like us are concerned about questions such as: are there toilets, lifts, ramps or seats set aside for us; are there tour guides for people with mobility, hearing or visual impairments; are there discounts for people with disabilities? And when booking a tour for a group of about 40 people in the same situation, asking these questions, we received refusals from travel agencies” – Le Quang (42, Hoa Binh, Hanoi) sadly shared.
One of the reasons travel agencies “turn a blind eye” to these guests is that tourism infrastructure does not really meet the needs of people with disabilities. In 2001, the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism stipulated that 4-5 star hotels must have rooms, lifts and facilities suitable for people with disabilities. However, because of their tight finances, Vietnamese people with disabilities only stay in 1-3 star hotels and guesthouses. There, most places still have flights of steps with no gentle ramps and no separate routes for people with disabilities. Road systems still have many places with large differences in height, and buses and taxis have no lifts to help wheelchair users get on and off easily. As a result, people with disabilities arriving at hotels or getting on and off buses have to rely on tour guides to carry and support them, and many tourist sites still lack toilet areas designed specifically for them… That is why people with disabilities feel embarrassed about being a burden and hesitate to travel.
Mainly tours run for charity and for the community
While a tour for non-disabled people, with a group of 30-40 guests, needs only 1-2 tour guides, a tour for people with disabilities needs a team of around 10-15 guides. This is because, for a group travelling in wheelchairs, many guides are needed to support them. Besides explaining, introducing the itinerary and describing places of scenic beauty, guides have to strain to lift wheelchairs to help guests get past obstacles; one guide is responsible for caring for people with physical impairments, another must know how to communicate with people with hearing impairments… Serving non-disabled people is already hard; serving people with disabilities demands much more.
Mr. Nguyen Thanh, a representative of a travel agency, admitted: “Once, we took a group of 6 guests but had as many as 4 tour guides plus a driver to serve them. It was exhausting! At present we rarely run specialised tours because of the difficulty of providing staff and facilities at tourist sites. However, if customers with disabilities register, we still accept the tour, but on condition that the tour for people with disabilities is accompanied by support. That is, a family member must come along to help; one person with a disability must be accompanied by one relative. If a group of people with disabilities travels without relatives to assist them, we have to refuse because we cannot have enough tour guides to follow and serve them”.
There are very few tour guides serving people with disabilities while demand is high, so the cost of paying guides is very high. Not to mention that most Vietnamese people with disabilities are poor, so they always want the cheapest possible tour. It costs a lot and takes a lot of work, with much effort for little profit, or even losses, so it is easy to understand why many travel agencies “turn a blind eye”. At present, some travel agencies such as Saigontourist, Vietravel, Lua Viet, Hoa Binh, Vietnam Tourism in Hanoi and Vinatour… have begun to include this type of tourism in their operations, but the results have not been very encouraging. If they do occasionally organise tours for people with disabilities, travel agencies mainly do so for community and social welfare purposes, and very few agencies have boldly designed tours for people with disabilities as a business.
Perhaps that is why Vietnamese people with disabilities still see travelling as far too much of a luxury for their lives. And millions of Vietnamese people with disabilities always have to “stand on the sidelines” when it comes to enjoying life exploring landscapes and cultures at home and abroad.
Thuy Duong – http://baophapluat.vn