Tourism and disability: World4All’s map of accessible destinations
The platform provides verifiable and useful information for when you’re setting off on holiday
Turning accessibility in the tourism sector into information that is measurable, verifiable and useful when setting off on a holiday: is the mission of World4All, the start-up founded in 2022 by Marco Bottardi, an entrepreneur from Desenzano del Garda (Brescia) and former athlete, who became paraplegic following a motorbike accident and is now an activist for the rights of people with disabilities.
Expansion into Sardinia
A further step towards establishing itself as the “Google Maps of accessibility” is the opening of its new operational headquarters in Sardinia, with the aim of transforming the island into a laboratory for inclusive tourism and a model that can be extended to other Italian and European destinations.
“The opening of our office in Sardinia represents the natural evolution of the path we are forging,” comments Marvin Milanese, CEO and co-founder of World4All - “If we want to ensure that accessibility information is reliable and genuinely useful for travellers, we need to have a presence on the ground, work closely with operators and institutions, and collect data verified in the field. Sardinia is an extraordinary region that has the potential to become a European benchmark for accessible tourism, and for this reason it represents the first step in a broader national development strategy for us.”
The accessibility platform
World4All has over 350 certified facilities and is based on a platform that processes over 300 accessibility variables identified through certified technical audits and correlates them with the user’s functional profile, generating a personalised compatibility index. In addition to the technology, the start-up has developed a network of technicians across Italia, trained through its own Academy, who support businesses and institutions in improving accessibility.
A 9.6 billion market
Accessible tourism in Italia is worth 9.6 billion euros in direct and indirect economic impact and accounts for 8.2 per cent of domestic tourist arrivals. However, of the approximately 13 million Italians with disabilities, 75 per cent choose not to travel due to a lack of reliable information on the actual accessibility of facilities and services.
