Inclusive Tourism Ecosystems: Key Stakeholders And Their Roles

Abstract

The ecosystem approach is now the main direction of the evolution of industries and businesses and applying it to inclusive tourism can contribute to its development. However, it requires the identification of different groups of stakeholders and their roles within the ecosystem of inclusive tourism. We demonstrate that stakeholders of the inclusive tourism ecosystem perform the following key roles: consumers, producers, enablers, protectors, regulators, and observers. A superposition of stakeholders exists as stakeholders may perform more than one function. This complex nature of stakeholders should be taken into account within strategies for the development of inclusive tourism as it creates a good basis for cooperation between different groups of stakeholders. Special attention should be paid to fostering the participation of people with disabilities in different roles.