Wheelchair Accessible Tourism in Africa

Disability Tourism in Africa is one of the concepts in tourism industry, every human being has a social right to go for tours as any other human being on earth. This is a concept whereby the physically impaired in society is accessible to tourism.  Globally it is estimated that over 5 million people are disabled, both physically and otherwise. Some are paraplegic and some are disabled after various calamities. These circumstances have made over 5 million individuals to have some form of disability. The Hotels and Resorts in Africa are being urged to provide wheelchair accessibility in their various holiday establishments. We at Niche Africa Holidays have started this concept of tourism in Africa to take care of the paraplegic, the physically impaired, the blind and the deaf including those who are aged and slow movers. We have urged many hotels and resorts in Africa to provide disability rooms in their establishment of which some have and others have not done so.

Demand for accessible tourism offers is being made daily and the tourism industry is urging the tour operators to have wheel chair accessibility tours. Niche Africa Holidays arranges escorted tours and Safaris for the physically impaired, the deaf and the blind within our society. We place them, our disabled clients in various resorts and hotels within the East African community which includes Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and Tanzania. In all these establishments, we first ascertain that they are wheelchair accessible and also provide disability rooms. Among our recent undertakings included the services of professional nurses escorting the paraplegic in various tours within Lake Victoria, Bird watching in Uganda, the Safari Walk in Nairobi and the Animal orphanage including the Giraffe centre where the physical disabled fed the giraffes themselves.

For the deaf and the blind we encourage that they be accompanied by various able personalities who include teachers for the students, relatives for the blind and both teachers or relatives for the deaf. For the married, we encourage that they are joined by their spouses and children if any, in the tours and safari’s in order to encourage moral support which includes support in the disabled person during safaris and tours in Africa.

Disability Tours in East Africa

Niche Africa holidays continues to successfully take wheelchair travelers, slow walkers, and small groups of disabled members of society into safaris and tours within East Africa which includes the five countries of East Africa community. It is in East Africa where you will find the Seventh wonder of the world that is the annual wildebeest migration from Serengeti into the Maasai Mara National Park. The mountain gorillas in Bwindi and Mgahinga in Uganda not to mention the largest population of the Mountain Gorillas in Virunga Mountains in Rwanda. The water rafting at the source of River Nile on Lake Victoria, on River Tana and various many rivers in East Africa. The slow movers have undertaken the Mountain Gorilla trips in Uganda and also the blind have visited the Elephant Orphanage in Nairobi National Park where they are able to touch the tamed and the Orphaned Elephants and know the size of the same physically. We also integrate the foreign disabled clients with local disabled individuals in order for them to have a cultural understanding and experience their predicaments. Niche Africa Holidays staff personally escort tours of disabled personnel.

Tanzania, being the centre of wildlife population in East Africa and having many National parks and Reserves, disability wildlife tourism is most appropriate in Tanzania than any part of East Africa. We encourage physically impaired clients who want to see wildlife in their abundance to travel with us to Tanzania. The most appropriate reserves and National parks are, Serengeti National Park, the Ngorogoro Crater and Lake Manyara National park where they will see the tree climbing Lions. Lake Manyara is also known for its bird life, in that case we escort disabled clients who are interested in bird watching to visit Lake Manyara National Park where they will see over 300 species of the same.

Uganda, the pearl of East Africa is a swampy country where birding leads wildlife tourism. In addition to birding and wildlife tourism, we have the  Mountain gorillas located in Bwindi and Mgahinga National parks not to mention the islands of Sesse and Ngamba in Lake Victoria where clients visit the Chimpanzees. We have in one occasion taken a paraplegic client up to the Mountain gorilla’s places at Bwindi and Mgahinga, which showed that even the disabled can witness the Mountain gorillas in their natural habitat.

Disability Tours in Kenya

Kenya, and Nairobi city being the herb  for entrance into East Africa stands pivotal for the incoming physically challenged clients for tourism because Kenya boasts to have many hotels and resorts with wheel chair accessibility and disability rooms. All these are located within the resorts and hotels including lodges within its National parks, National reserves and the beaches of Mombasa. Among the hotels in the city centre of Nairobi which have wheel chair accessibility and disability rooms include the Panafric hotel, Hilton hotel, the Holiday Inn and lastly the Safari Park Hotel, all of which have at least one or two disability rooms. In Mombasa and in the National reserves of Tsavo, we have the Satao camp, the Sopa Lodges, and the Mombasa beach hotels which include the Turtle Bay club. The Sopa lodges in Naivasha, Masaai Mara and part of the Serena Hotels  have developed disability tented camps for those clients who wish to enjoy watching wildlife in their remote habitat. Some of the hotels and lodges which are wheel chair accessible include; Voi safari lodge, the Salt Lick resort, the Kilaguni lodge, the Ark and the Satao camp all of these have wildlife watering holes in front of their main establishments where animals come to water themselves daily. In view of these situations the water hole resorts and lodges are favorable for the wheel chair clients.

Demand for disability tours and safaris

The clients that we take for disability tourism include:-

• The physically impaired which include the paraplegic clients.
• The blind
• The deaf
• The slow movers who include the aged.
• Disability Tour Packages