Training the leaders of the future to have a more inclusive vision and to design hotels that are more accessible for families with children with autism is the goal of the “Tourism for all.
Training the leaders of the future to have a more inclusive vision and to design hotels that are more accessible for families with children with autism is the goal of the “Tourism for all” course created by HTSI.
An initiative of the School of Tourism and Hospitality Management Sant Ignasi and Hotel AC Victoria Suite (Marriott Hotels) designed to help families travelling with autistic children, the “Tourism for all” course is part of the Bachelor Degree in Tourism and Hospitality Management. It uses a new methodology developed in collaboration with ESADE’s Pedagogical Innovation Institute. Mónica Cerdán and Daniela Freund, lecturers and researchers in HTSI, are responsible for this subject.
A group of international students from HTSI’s partner universities will work on the action-based challenge of helping Hotel AC Victoria Suite to be a more inclusive and accessible establishment for families travelling with autistic children by designing a product, service or experience. “Students will be asked to present the hotel with a working proposal that really improves things for this group, one that they can apply, develop and prototype”, explains HTSI professor HTSI Daniela Freund.
Tools for pedagogical innovation such as the Empathy Map, a design thinking-based method of observation, will allow students to put themselves in the position of a family with autism and observe the possible needs of this group with an in situ visit to the hotel.
In addition, design thinking expert Alexandra Rodríguez will direct some of the sessions in order to help students with the final prototyping of their proposal, which they will present before a panel made up of the hotel’s management team and ESADE’s director of Pedagogical Innovation, Ana Iniesta, among others. Students also have the opportunity to listen to HTSI alumnus Juanma Pastor, who describes his experience working at Hotel ME Ibiza with a family with an autistic child, and how he addressed their different needs.
For several years now, the School of Tourism and Hospitality Management has been working on training and raising awareness on autism in different areas of the tourism sector. In 2018, HTSI prepared an advice manual for traveling with children with autism. In 2016, thanks to the Open Day organized together with El Liceu, over a hundred children with an autism spectrum disorder attended an opera rehearsal at Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona. That same year, an Open Day was organized for the group at El Prat airport together with AENA and Vueling.