Accessibility as Competitive Advantage of a Tourism Destination: The Case of Lousã

Tourism destinations are facing intense and increasing competition worldwide, while consumers are ever more demanding, requiring not only service quality but also socially responsible and sustainable destinations. In this context, developing accessible tourism at a destination may help gain competitiveness in an underserved, typically most loyal market. Developing accessible tourism may also create a culture of social responsibility. This would enhance a shared, human and involving vision of the destination amongst stakeholders, including tourists who increasingly value socially responsible positions of economic actors in the tourism industry. The development of this approach is shown for Lousã, a small tourism destination focusing on accessible tourism as a core of its development strategy, a strategy developed through a stakeholder participatory approach. In this chapter, we present a study that helped develop the strategic positioning of Lousã, combining qualitative and quantitative methods and integrating visions of several relevant stakeholders.