since 2011. In partnership with associa-
The
Dr Rüdiger Leidner, Honorary President of NatKo
NatKo: helping the tourism industry
to learn from affected travellers
National Coordination Board Tourism for
All (NatKo) is a non-profit organisation
that has been promoting barrier-free trav-
el since 1999 and has been a GNTB sponsor
it comes to barrier-free tourism.
tions for the disabled, it acts in an advisory
capacity and helps members of the tour-
ism industry – from small family business-
es to large organisations – to develop bar-
rier-free products and services. The agency
is currently working with the
German Seminar for Tourism (DSFT) to de-
velop a nationally recognised certification
scheme for barrier-free travel services.
The GNTB is able to call on NatKo for
advice on all aspects of ‘barrier-free travel’
and ‘tourism for all’. In 2013 NatKo organ-
ised the Barrier-free Tourism Day at the
ITB – and is doing so again this year with
the support of the GNTB. “The great
response we received showed how seri-
ously the tourism industry is taking the
subject,” says Dr Rüdiger Leidner, Honorary
President of NatKo. “Nonetheless, Germany
remains only a medium-size player when
German travel industry still needs to do a
lot more to stay competitive in this sector.”
Barrier-free tourism is not a niche
market for disabled people
Leidner believes one of the biggest
challenges lies in persuading tourism or-
ganisations that barrier-free tourism is not
a niche market for disabled people: “Barrier-
free travel is sustainable tourism in the
broader sense, and has the capacity to
make the German travel industry more
competitive as a whole both now and in
the future. That’s why every opportunity
should be taken to increase the degree of
collaboration among the main actors in
barrier-free tourism. However, we can only
do this if we receive the necessary political
and financial support.”