Sardinia, the project “The Island that welcomes” is underway: accessible tourism for people with disabilities.

Presented by Councilor Cuccureddu, the regional plan involves four coastal municipalities to make beaches and tourist services inclusive. One million and 769 thousand euros from the Ministry for Disability.

Presented by the Tourism Councillor, Franco Cuccureddu, the project “The Island that welcomes: Accessible and inclusive tourism in Sardinia”, which aims to make the territory accessible to people with physical, sensorial and intellectual disabilities and to make Sardinia an inclusive tourist destination, recognized by the target audience as an organized, guaranteed destination and among the excellences in Italy.

“For us this marks only the beginning of a journey – says Councillor Cuccureddu – with which to tackle the world of disability and create an accessible and inclusive tourism offer, which needs to obtain a tangible institutional approach. It is appropriate to move from the concept of disability to that of the need of the person. A person with a disability is a tourist. Ensuring full tourist accessibility is not only a legal obligation or an ethical concern, but it means increasing the quality of hospitality and making our land more competitive.”

The intervention of the Regional Department of Tourism was possible thanks to financing from the national fund provided by the Ministry of Disability. Sardinia was awarded the sum of 1 million 769 thousand euros. The bonus was not granted since in 2023, no request was submitted in this regard.

In order to this first year, it was decided to concentrate the intervention in the area of ​​seaside tourism and to involve the coastal municipalities of Sardinia as implementing bodies.

The internal areas, in fact, have been affected by the funding provided by the National Fund for Tourism (FUNT), concerning the development of the hinterland and slow and experiential tourism.

The Department of Tourism, Crafts and Commerce has called for an expression of interest in which eighteen Municipalities participated, with their related projects; proposals all worthy of attention and structured in full compliance with the indications contained in the Decree.

The available funds allowed for the financing of four proposals, brought together into a single regional project, for subsequent presentation to the Ministry for Disabilities, which evaluated it positively and admitted it to funding.

Four coastal municipalities are involved: Alghero, La Maddalena (with the island of Caprera), Orosei and Carloforte.

In particular, the project contains interventions regarding tourism activities that ensure full accessibility to services such as the creation of equipped beaches, equipped transport and guaranteed routes; qualifying the reception, integration with health services, communication and promotion with the creation of accessible websites to describe the offer of services, participation in promotional campaigns and fairs, training of operators in the tourism sector, offering internships for the work inclusion of people with disabilities and training for the protection of the rights of people with disabilities.

“This is the first funding that we are particularly proud of,” Franco Cuccureddu underlined. “Last year, Sardinia had not requested funds from the Ministry for Disability for accessible and inclusive tourism. We made a call for proposals in which 18 municipalities participated, four of which were funded with projects essentially for services, for staff training, to create the conditions to allow everyone access to our most beautiful beaches. The four municipalities that won are equally divided between the north, north-west and north-east. On the island of La Maddalena, the interventions will concern in particular the island of Caprera and then on the south-west coast in the municipality of Carloforte and on the central-eastern coast in the municipality of Orosei. There are 12 other projects that are equally interesting but that have not reached the necessary score to be funded, which we hope to be able to fund with regional resources or even from other departments, also because they are projects that truly deserve it.”