AD ALTA
JOURNAL OF INTERDISCIPLINARY RESEARCH
2 Materials and Methods
The aim of this paper is to map the possibilities for people with
physical disabilities to participate in tourism in the town of
Carlsbad.
Partial aims are also defined:
to map culture and historic heritage sites and their
accessibility for disabled visitors,
to map barrier-free tourist routes and natural heritage,
to map accessible accommodation facilities which follow
legal regulations,
to map restaurant & catering facilities accessible for
wheelchair users.
The paper is based on primary and secondary data sources.
Among the secondary sources we used mainly professional
books and journal literature, international documents regarding
social tourism and the relevant legislative regulations of the
Czech Republic. Furthermore, we used specialized web portals
providing information to people with disabilities, databases of
tourist information centrum of Carlsbad, Czech Statistical
Office, various hotel portals, websites of accommodation and
catering facilities, information materials of the spa, etc.
Primary data were obtained from field research within the
framework of which we verified barrier-free access found out
with the help of secondary research. A large number of tourism
establishments and attractions were personally visited.
Information about some of the establishments was verified by
telephone.
Collecting of primary data took place in 2017 through 2018. The
methods of analysis (also Correspondence analysis - CA) and
generalization were used. Using graphic tools of this CA, it is
possible to describe an association of nominal or ordinal
variables and to obtain a graphic representation of a relationship
in multidimensional space – for the readers; it is easier to
understand. The analysis provides further evidence that
dependencies exist between variables.
CA is a multivariate statistical technique. It is conceptually
similar to principal component analysis but applies to categorical
rather than continuous data. In a similar manner to principal
component analysis, it provides a means of displaying or
summarizing a set of data in a two-dimensional graphical form
(Zámková & Prokop, 2014). All data should be non-negative and
on the same scale for CA to be applicable, and the method treats
rows and columns equivalently. It is traditionally applied to
contingency tables - CA decomposes the chi-squared statistic
associated with this table into orthogonal factors. The distance
among single points is defined as a chi-squared distance. The
distance between i-th and i’-th row is given by the formula
(1)
where r
ij
are the elements of row profiles matrix R and weights
c
j
are corresponding to the elements of column loadings vector
c
T
, which is equal to mean column profile (centroid) of column
profiles in multidimensional space. The distance between
columns j and j‘ is defined similarly, weights are corresponding
to the elements of the row loadings vector r and sum over all
rows. In correspondence analysis, we observe the relation among
single categories of two categorical variables. Result of this
analysis is the correspondence map introducing the axes of the
reduced coordinates system, where single categories of both
variables are displayed in graphic form. The aim of this analysis
is to reduce the multidimensional space of row and column
profiles and to save maximally original data information. Each
row and column of correspondence table can be displayed in c-
dimensional (r-dimensional respectively) space with coordinates
equal to values of corresponding profiles. The row and column
coordinates on each axis are scaled to have inertias equal to the
principal inertia along that axis: these are the principal row and
column coordinates (Hebák et al., 2007).
Table 1: Criteria of accessibility
Criteria
Characteristics
Accessible
(barrier-
free)
accessible all building/park/monument
or a majority of its space – minimum
one barrier-free access
visit possible without booking
ramps (mobile or fixed, inside/outside);
3m long ramp with a slope max. 12,5%,
9m long ramp max. 8%
fixed ramp width at least 110 cm
door width at least 80 cm
threshold high max. 2 cm
accessible WC
elevator (100 cm x 125 cm)
smooth motion inside the building
(slightly elevated threshold, no step or
stairs, easy and reliable access to all
floors of a building)
Partially
accessible
access – not more than one stair
accessible
only part of the
building/park/monument or some from
other requirements are not fulfilled
ramps (mobile or fixed, inside/outside);
3 m long ramp with a slope max.
16,5%, 9 m long ramp max. 12,5%
fixed ramp width at least 110 cm
door width at least 70 cm
threshold high max. 7 cm
accessible WC is not the main criterium
elevator (100 cm x 110 cm)
platform lift (70 cm x 90 cm)
Inaccessible
complicated and difficult access to the
building, to all floors of a building
Source: Processed by the Prague Organization of Wheelchair
Users (http://www.presbariery.cz)
3 Results and Discussion
The town of Carlsbad is one of the most famous spa towns in the
Czech Republic. It is a popular tourism destination and a center
of Carlsbad region with more than 230 thousand visitors per
year. Indications for a spa treatment in the town of Carlsbad are
gastrointestinal diseases, metabolic disorders, and
musculoskeletal diseases.
Figure 1: Map of the Czech Republic
Source: http://www.kijkjeinmijnhuis.nl/
a)
Natural healing springs
In the town of Carlsbad, there are situated 15 natural healing
springs. Springs: Vřídlo, Mlýnský, Rusalka, Prince Václav the
1st, Prince Václav the 2nd, Libuše, Skalní, Svoboda, and Hadí
have barrier-free access. Springs Zámecký upper, Sadový, and
Štěpánka are partially accessible because of insufficient ramp
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