Italian Accessible Tourism Startups and Regional Sustainable Development

Purpose: The concept of accessible tourism has been recently extended by involving permanent and temporary disabilities and also gender, race, ability or sexual diversity and every kind of inequality. Therefore, providing services capable of improving it for different market groups is an important challenge for the sustainable development of regions. This research intends to identify to what extent Italian accessible tourism startups meet regional sustainable development. Design/methodology/approach: This study performs an exploratory qualitative analysis based on a netnography collecting data deriving from the ten best projects awarded in the Invitalia 2019 challenge “Accessible”. Findings: Startups help not only cognitive but also actual accessibility dimension of regional tourism development, indeed, the findings reveal three different categories of "access gain": physical, cultural and health-related all suitable to increase the regional sustainable development. Research limitations: The main limitation is represented by the qualitative study, whose results are not generalizable. Indeed, it is the first step of broader research aimed to investigate the linkages between accessible tourism and regional sustainable development. Research implications: Existing firms and new entrepreneurs could enhance their business activities, taking into account accessible tourism opportunities. Policymakers should design and improve accessibility regulations as a competitive advantage for any sustainable regional tourism policy.