Orientation and Mobility in Tourism
Orientation and mobility are important factors in being able to navigate the world. For a sighted person, they are easily taken for granted, as it is easy using vision to identify your position in relation to landmarks or to identify hazards in your environment. For a person who is blind or has low vision, however, these are skills that require careful development to be able to safely navigate the environment.
What is Orientation & Mobility? (O&M)
Orientation refers to a person’s ability to know where they are positioned in their environment using their senses. It means knowing where you are in space and having a general idea of the surrounding environment.
Mobility refers to how readily and confidently a person is able to safely move in their environment. This can include anything from walking without tripping, to crossing a road safely or navigating the transportation system.
Orientation & Mobility Training
For a person that is blind or has low vision, learning to navigate the world without their sight is an essential skill. One-on-one orientation and mobility training from O&M specialists is a helpful service to develop the necessary skills for spatial awareness and mobility, making use of non-sight senses and the mobility aids available to individuals.
Orientation and mobility training experiences can differ depending on the individual’s life stage and when a person’s vision loss occurs. Those who are born blind or for whom blindness occurs during childhood are often given training to orient themselves in an environment before progressing to mobility training, so that these skills can be applied to a general environment. The focus is on developing the child’s confidence in these skills. For adults, the training may be more specific to their highly-frequented environments at first. The focus for adults is to ensure they have the skills necessary to continue operating within environments where they need independence, such as in their workplace or at home.
What does O&M training cover?
Orientation and mobility training aims to make environments more independently accessible for people that are blind or have low vision. The techniques and strategies covered in these sessions can vary depending on individual situations, but for most the focus is on developing sensory awareness and techniques that help people safely navigate common hazards in their environment. Some common topics covered in O&M training include:
Sensory training of non-sight senses so that a person that is blind or low vision is able to use their other senses to orient themselves within dynamic environments
Techniques, such as trailing, to navigate safely through environments without using mobility aids
How to use aids such as a white cane or a Sunu Band to navigate safely through an environment
How to ask for or decline assistance
Navigating to destinations using directions, including landmarks or compass directions
Techniques and strategies to safely cross the street, often using traffic analysis
Problem-solving skills to help individuals reorient themselves in unfamiliar settings, including if they become lost
Using public transportation systems to travel independently
The role of O&M in accessible tourism
Orientation and mobility training play an important role in enabling blind and low vision tourists to travel independently. When interviewed about their travel experiences, many blind and low vision tourists identified features in the infrastructure and physical environment of their destinations that presented barriers to accessibility. For most, these barriers come in the form of inconveniences that make them dependent on friends and family for traveling - and no one wants to feel like a burden on holidays! Where the tourists had adequate training to be able to orient themselves and function independently in a new environment, such as their accommodation, made their experience much more enjoyable. For example, being able to use the kitchen to prepare their own food meant that they were less dependent on travel companions, which alleviated some of the guilt and anxiety they experienced.
Responsibility also lies with tourism infrastructure to optimise environments for accessible tourism. While some destinations have implemented environmental features or guides that facilitate orientation and mobility through unfamiliar places, others remain inaccessible to blind and low vision tourists wanting to travel independently. Reaching some level of universal design in infrastructure such as airports and accommodation will go a long way to improving blind and low vision tourists’ ability to orient themselves and move easily through their environment, and in turn open up a world of independent travel opportunities.
Orientation and mobility training aligns with our mission at Vacayit, to break down barriers to independent travel for blind and low vision tourists and open up a world full of amazing travel opportunities.
Information sourced from:
Loi, K.I. & Kong, W.H. (2016). Tourism for all: Challenges and issues faced by people with vision impairment. Tourism Planning & Development, 14(2), 181-197. https://doi.org/10.1080/21568316.2016.1204357
Vision Australia. (2019). What is orientation and mobility? https://www.visionaustralia.org/community/news/2019-08-23/what-orientation-and-mobility
VisionAware. (2021). Orientation and Mobility Skills.https://visionaware.org/everyday-living/essential-skills/an-introduction-to-orientation-and-mobility-skills/