Miguel Nonay was born in 1961 and in August 1962 he was infected with poliomyelitis, which affected his mobility.
“They were going to vaccinate me in September,” he recalls now, at 63 years old.
“I used crutches and orthopedic devices until 13 years ago, but when I saw that it was starting to be a bit problematic to get around, I decided to sit in a wheelchair.
Since then I have been comfortably sitting in first class and traveling the world.
“It's my job,” he explains by phone from the Aragonese town where he resides with his partner, Eva Gutiérrez.
That wheelchair has not stopped Miguel and Eva from traveling around the world.
Since 2007 they have done it professionally and captured it on the Viajeros Sin Límite website, where they show the accessibility (or not) of the tourist destinations they visit.
“To give you an idea, I have been to more than a thousand hotels in Spain and there are approximately 700 outside of it,” Nonay estimates.
Her next destination is, once again, Benidorm, which, this year, has been awarded in the first edition of the Fitur 4all Awards in the Inclusive National Destination category.
“Thanks to the bike lanes and the flatness of the city, Eva with her bike and I with my
handbike
travel 15 or 20 kilometers a day when we are in Benidorm,” she says.
They know the city well and are among those who return, in part, because of the facilities it offers to travelers with mobility problems like him.
Nonay highlights the accessibility of its restaurants, bars, museums, hotels, sandy beaches.
“There are three accessible beach spots, one on Levante beach and two on Poniente beach, which are great,” he guarantees.
The Alicante municipality was a pioneer in the implementation of these points in 2000. According to data from the City Council, in 2023 17,916 people have used the service and the lifeguard teams have provided 2,731 assisted baths.
More information
Three walks in the warm Alicante sun
That the 44th edition of the recent Madrid International Tourism Fair was the first time that a section was dedicated to inclusive tourism is no coincidence.
“There has been notable progress in incorporating inclusive practices compared to previous times.
Awareness-raising, information, training and planning as a basis for development translates into a greater focus on the adaptation of destinations, companies and services to guarantee that all people can fully enjoy tourism experiences on equal terms," considers Fran Sardón, president of Impulsa Igualdad, the non-profit organization that has collaborated with Fitur to launch these awards.
Miguel Nonay with his 'handbike' in Serra Gelada, in Benidorm.
The selection of Benidorm as deserving of one of these awards - Colombia has won in the International Destination category;
PortAventura World, the Company;
and the Costa Rican Tourism Network, the Organization - is not due to chance either.
In 2017, the city approved its first Accessibility Plan, based on which it has implemented measures such as the implementation of a single platform (without curbs) in more than 40 streets and avenues, the development of accessible plans, the placement of glass in tourist enclaves such as El Castell to facilitate views for people in wheelchairs or the provision of self-propelled chairs at the Tossal de la Cala site.
All of this makes it the favorite destination of Lucía Martínez, a 23-year-old nursing technician who was left in a wheelchair during the first wave of Covid due to internal bleeding that compressed her spinal cord.
“I don't change it anymore.
If before being in a chair I already went to Benidorm a lot, now even more because of all the accessibility there is.
For example, most of the bars and restaurants are at street level and have a ramp inside, so they don't pose any problem to me,” she admits.
The more than 202,000 followers that Martínez has on TikTok accompany her on all her trips and witnessed her last three-day getaway with her boyfriend to the Alicante municipality, including dips in the pool thanks to an adapted chair and accessible diving experiences in the sea.
But what she appreciates most is moving by land with total independence thanks to the city's unique platform: “Benidorm makes you independent and you can go with your family, with your partner, with your friends... quietly, without need of being pushed or helped up a step.
For a person who is in a chair, having independence is very important because we do not like to be anyone's burden.”
As Martínez says, these measures are important for people with disabilities, but also for those who accompany them on their getaways.
Lucía Machota, 37, is the mother of Romeo, 6. “He was born blind and we realized two months after he was born,” she says by phone from her town of Ávila.
Romeo is still little, but his mother regrets that there are already many barriers when traveling: flights of stairs in hotels, city maps, menu cards or elevators without content in Braille, lack of audio guides, sudden sinkholes on the beaches... That is why it values so much the effort of cities like Benidorm when it comes to laying tactile pavement, implementing acoustic and vibration traffic lights, installing interpretive tables in Braille or implementing the Navilens guidance system for blind people.
“We spent some incredible days because you realize where your place is, they work hard to make it a totally inclusive city for everyone,” says Machota.
View this post on Instagram
A post shared by Lussy Romeo's mom 🦁 (@lucialovesromeo)
Spain's position in inclusive tourism at a global level, according to Sardón, has demonstrated progress and progress: "It could even be positioned as a reference in the matter alongside countries such as the United States, Australia, Japan or Germany."
Even so, he recalls that “more awareness, investment and collaboration between the public and private sectors” is still needed to ensure the sustainability of these practices.
“Not only the infrastructure must be accessible, but also each of the links in the accessibility chain in tourism, based on information and planning,” she warns.
Nonay, for example, has gone paragliding in the Aragonese Pyrenees, ridden a camel in the Sahara, and gone diving in the Red Sea.
And yet, she says, his greatest adventure when he walks through some cities is still finding a bar with an adapted bathroom, “where you can have a couple of beers in peace and then you can go pee.”
The power of leisure as therapy
PortAventura 'Uncharted' attraction (Tarragona).PortAventura World
There are people who love roller coasters.
It became clear when PortAventura World put out a job offer looking for a tester for this type of attractions in August 2023 and in five days it already had almost 8,000 eager candidates.
Other people hate or fear them and there is even an English term - with no equivalent in Spanish - to refer to the extreme fear of roller coasters:
veloxrotaphobia
.
But there are people who don't know if they love them or hate them because they can't ride them.
This is the case, for example, of many people with reduced mobility, for whom the inability to hold on to these types of attractions prevents them from enjoying (or suffering) them.
Or it was prevented because, thanks to virtual reality, there are roller coasters like the new
Uncharted
, from PortAventura, which allows you to experience the adrenaline of the trip both on board its car at 60 kilometers per hour and from the mobile platform that simulates its climbs. and descents and that has been enabled for anyone who wants to ride with their wheelchair.
“From the beginning of the project we were clear that it had to be an attraction that everyone could enjoy,” says Choni Fernández, Director of Customer, Sustainability and Communication at PortAventura World.
The Villaseca amusement park (Tarragona) has been recognized as an Inclusive Company in the first edition of the Fitur 4all awards.
“This award allows us to show the B side, the one you don't see in the television advertisement or in the brochure,” says Fernández.
That other side is palpable from the door itself, since they have the ACNE office to serve clients with special needs.
There they are given an adapted map of the park, indicating the attractions, restaurants and spaces that fit each case.
“If you are a person with reduced mobility or autism, for example, we provide a bracelet that allows access to attractions or shows in areas without architectural barriers and avoiding queues,” says Fernández.
Its other big bet in this sense is Dreams Village, a space of six adapted villas within the park that welcomes families with sick children weekly to promote the value of leisure within their recovery therapy.
“It is a completely adapted island and they have unlimited access to the play areas, the restaurants... they are with us for a week completely free,” explains Fernández.
The goal now is to continue setting an example.
In 2024 they plan to welcome a room of silence designed for people with autism, so that they can rest in a silent space, without the impact of lights and sounds.
And they are going to work in two lines: “One, to improve training for all employees to treat people with autism spectrum disorders, and two, we are also going to work better on hearing disabilities, placing magnetic loops in some of the shows where There is a lot of dialogue so that the voice comes in much clearer directly into the hearing aid.”
Subscribe here to the
El Viajero newsletter
and find inspiration for your next trips on our
,
X
and
Instagram accounts
.