“You just have to shake them awake!” : experiences of tourists with a disability in Malta

Abstract

Within the rising amount of tourists visiting Malta each year, there has been one type of tourist who has remained unscrutinized by anthropologists and other social scientists, namely persons with a disability. In the spirit of post-colonial and narrative anthropology, the author wants to give a voice to the people under scrutiny and to offer them a forum to express their thoughts, attitudes and emotion. First, the author will look at what barriers and constraints persons with a disability and the persons who accompany them have to cope with when on holiday in Malta. Secondly, he will focus on the interaction between tourists with a disability/ the people who accompany them and other tourists and locals and the perception of this interaction from the viewpoint of the tourists with a disability. From a comparative perspective, he concludes it’s striking how one glance at previous research done on tourists with a disability shows similar experiences, barriers and constraints as the ones reported in this research. In this regard, the experiences documented may be indicative for the situation in Malta. In the end, he advises it is the responsibility of the government and tourism industry to facilitate the whole process of going on holiday.