Abstract:

Today, there are more than a billion disabled individuals in the world, and this number is increasing every day. As each person wants to have fun, travel and rest, disabled persons are also required to participate in tourism activities. The disabled tourism market has emerged in order to respond to this demand of disabled tourists. Today’s tourism students are potential tourism employers who will offer services in the disabled tourism market tomorrow. The study was conducted with the aim of measuring tourism students’ views of disabled individuals and disabled tourism. For this purpose, data from 1,903 students who receive tourism education at the university level in Turkey were obtained through the survey and the data obtained were analyzed in the SPSS statistical package program. Although there are different studies in literature related to tourism with disabilities, the study in the field of tourism students is limited. In this context, it is believed that the work will make a significant contribution to literature. According to the results of the study, it is understood that tourist students in Turkey showed importance to special infrastructure and superstructure elements to disabled tourists and emphasized that these elements should be developed. Tourism students believe that the equipment for disabled tourists in tourist facilities is insufficient and that the existing equipment should also be improved. Another topic that tourism students emphasize in the study is the need to provide facilitating services in all sectors of tourism in order to increase the holiday satisfaction of disabled tourists.

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