Disability digest: Economic benefits of making built environment accessible to persons with disabilities. (Cont’d)

Research Methodology

The study concentrated on sites within and around Stockholm city. Stockholm was chosen as the prime case study area because it is the most  dominant social, political, economic, etc. centre in Sweden.

In addition, Stockholm is claimed to be one of the most accessible cities in the world. However, there are some evidences that seem to disagree with the foregoing political statement. The principal interest of this project was not for the verifications of such a political statement  but rather to investigate the economic gains of making the physically built environment accessible to persons with disabilities.

Research Question
In order to realize the objectives of the research project, the study was guided by the following research question:

What are the main economic incentives for adapting sites to barrier-free?
In Sweden and Europe in general, empirical research on the subject  of the economic incentives of accessible built  environment  and accessible labour market  has not  been very intensive (Bound& Burkhauser, 1999). This absence of economic studies may be among other things due to: The studying of persons with disabilities, from the economic perspective, in terms of economic efficiency for instance, could be a delicate matter, detail information on disabilities is scarce, and it is sometimes difficult to define disabilities on the basis of available data.

The number of persons with disabilities, their problems on labour market and the cost of the disability policy as above may be underestimated. Since the study was about the economic  incentives of making the built environment accessible to persons with disabilities by adopting the sites to barrier-free, my main targets were sites near the city centre where most tourism sites are common.  A review of literatures on the economic benefits of non-handicapping tourism or non-handicapping built  environment was embarked on to have a general overview of what has been done in this area of study. I equally hope, the findings will serve as basis for the analysis of the raw data.

Valuation Techniques
There are many different techniques to measure the financial attractiveness of any financial endeavour; for example, the return on investment, net  present  value, pay back period, break- even point, internal rate of return, etc. However, I have chosen to look at it from a general perspective focussing more on initiatives taken (e.g. construction of accessible rooms) to make enterprises both accessible and be able to cater for the needs of customers with disability and why.

This was necessary to avoid making unrealistic conclusions by assuming that the entire difference in the estimated income structure of accessible and non-accessible tourist sites for example, was due to accessibility as it is likely that one is assuming that the presence of other variables were insignificant..

Since there are different  levels of accessibilities even within the mobility impairment  domain, there was a need for more precision. Therefore, the level of accessibility focused on this study was the level of accessibility approved by the ‘Equality for all,’ an international European based organisation that promotes tourism for all which, amongst other things, is charged with the responsibilities of accessing levels of accessibilities in various European hotels. Thus, my criterion of determining accessibilities was solely based on the criteria used by this organisation in approving hotels’ accessibilities. This was very important to be adopted by the study because it was conducted in hotels approved accessible by the said institution.

Since approval of accessibilities was based on being accessible to all categories of persons with disabilities, and my study focused on accessibility for wheelchair users, I assumed that  all expenses were geared towards access for my target group. This was necessary because it was both time and resource demanding to single out expenses purposefully for my focus group and it was rather unfortunate that the needed financial and human resources were well beyond my reach. Therefore, all necessary data for the study was obtained from the hotels in Stockholm city and environs approved as accessible by Equality for all. To ascertain the validity of the data especially the expenses in modifications, consultant firms specialized in adapting built environment were consulted.

In brief, ‘Tourism för All i Severige’ is a Swedish national organisation aiming, among other things, at  inventory/inspecting and certifying establishments available to persons with disabilities. These responsibilities were discharged through personal visits to the establishments plus a comprehensive questionnaire. The materials were thoroughly checked and scrutinized by TFA. And, computerised in the “Barrier info system=EQUALITY”, a data bank based on joint European criteria, established in the European co-operation-HELIOS II. DIAS in Hamburg is responsible for the computer server.

The inspections in hotels, restaurants, museums, tourists’ attractions etc, were made by either an engineer from the Swedish National Testing and Research Institute (SMP), or by persons trained and sent out by TFA. It was necessary to involve staff from these institutions to both maintain a high level of quality, continuity and low costs (as they also inspect  elevators, kitchen equipment etc they can as well  inspect the accessibility at the same time).

Data Collection Techniques
The study employed both quantitative and qualitative methods of data collection. The combination of approaches was necessary to allow compliments to findings.

Quantitative Techniques
Data collection was by means of a questionnaire administered by tourist sites owners and /or administrators. The questions were of two types. One was mainly on the individual’s site expenses, problems, income within a specified period and, the other one, was geared towards soliciting and acquiring factual and demographic data on visitors plus, what motivated them to visit or book the place, if possible. Probability sampling in the form of a simple random sampling, where each site had equal probability of selection was adopted. Random selection is believed to eliminate or adequately address subjective bias in the selection process.
 
Materials from seminars, conferences, government reports, presentations, etc. were also utilized particularly in providing information, which could not  be obtained in the field. This secondary data is also useful in making comparisons, analysing trends and establishing relationships, which might not come out in the interviews (Dale et al., 1988).

Qualitative Techniques
Qualitative approach was deployed to understand the meaning, process or views of a particular event or group with the researcher being at the centre of the study as an instrument of data collection and analysis (Merriam, 1988; Strauss, 1987). It allows the researcher to get closer to what is being studied and share the understanding and perception of others (Shatzman & Strauss, 1973). Qualitative procedures are said to be invaluable in accessing no quantifiable facts (Berg, 1998).  This was very crucial for an emerging subject area like the economic incentives of non-handicapping built environment.. Bearing in mind, this area being not much researched, one is bound to be confronted with limited information.

The qualitative method was specifically adopted to explore general public views with regard to the economic benefits of non-handicapping tourism sites. More especially, their perception of the societal benefits from it.

According to (Yin, 1994), the qualitative research is informed by a case study approach. Collection of qualitative data in the study relied on three methods:

In-depth, open- ended interviews, often described as a conversation with a purpose, (Kahn & Cannel, 19 Potential 57), was used to gather visitors’ views with regard to the importance of tourism for all. As a result of its flexibility, this mode of inquiry enables exploration of many aspects of the interviewee’s concern on the subject  being studied. The in-depth interview was selected for two reasons: first, it enables exploration of first hand encounters (Yin, 1994) and second, it allows the researcher to countercheck information provided on the spot through follow up questions or request for clarification.  Open-ended questions were deployed as a means of getting an overview of the operation and essence of barrier-free tourism sites from owners and administrators of sites /agents. (Robson, 1993) recommends this method for investigating a particular phenomenon as it allows people’s views and feelings to emerge during discussion.
 
Participant observation, as a method of data collection was also employed. Basically this method was deployed to understand ongoing social processes, physical features etc, which may otherwise be difficult to gather from interviews. This method enables researchers to discover interrelationships of elements of the research, which cannot  be figured out when interviews  are being  conducted (Robson, 1993). As such, observation method was used to undertake physical evaluation of surrounding environment. The said method was also used as a check mechanism.

Data Analysis Techniques
Data analysis process entailed two stages: initial analysis where codes, tables, etc. were created, variables prepared through combining a number of codes, converting codes into variables or developing completely new variables.  Both descriptive and inferential statistics were used in the analysis. Descriptive statistics were used to provide a summary of patterns that emerged from the responses of the sample. Inferential statistics on the other hand was used to provide an overview of the applicability of the resulting patterns to the population.