Understanding the Discrimination Experienced by Customers with Disabilities in the Tourism and Hospitality Industry: The Case of Seoul in South Korea

Abstract

This article begins with the view that the research of accessible tourism should not only find justification for increasing demand but also have the ultimate purpose of seeking justice for an equitable society. To this end, prior research on accessible tourism is theoretically outlined, and the concepts, causes, and aspects of disability discrimination are considered. In addition, cases of discrimination of customers with disabilities in the tourism and hospitality industries are investigated by an ethnographic approach. The findings are categorized into seven sections, depending on the type of lack of understanding of customers with disabilities. In other words, service providers have a stereotypical view that customers with disabilities have similar attributes, and they also fail to free customers with disabilities from the prejudice of customers with nondisabilities, who may generalize the group with disabilities with a negative and hostile attitude. Additionally, tourist attractions, lodging, and dining infrastructure have caused a stigma that lowers the activities of customers with disabilities to bystanders or makes customers with disabilities more recognized as a social protection target rather than members of society. Therefore, marketing implications can be discussed in terms of physical facilities and human services at the key points where discrimination against customers with disabilities occurs, as can be seen from the results of this study.

1. Introduction

Accessible tourism has been steadily studied, where tourism rights should be guaranteed to people under any physical condition for sustainable tourism. Previous studies have shown that customers with disabilities, unlike customers with nondisabilities, have restrictions in tourism activities [1,2]; at the same time, customers with disabilities, like customers with nondisabilities, have a desire for tourism [3]. These research performances were increased by the Americans with the Disabilities Act in the United States and the Disability Discrimination Act in the United Kingdom [4,5]; in addition, they developed rapidly after referring to tourism rights in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities [6]. Social institutional changes have expanded the scope of social participation of people with disabilities and provided a basis for research to promote tourism for customers with disabilities as new markets grow in the hospitality and tourism industry [7].

However, tourism studies in South Korea tend to be omitted as to how discrimination actually occurs to customers with disabilities in the process of tourism and hospitality services. In recent decades, it has been revealed that people with disabilities are being discriminated against in many sociological fields such as labor, employment, education, sex, and administration in Korea, from which, in turn, laws on the prohibition of discrimination against persons with disabilities have been enacted [8]. In particular, with the enactment of the Act on the Promotion of Mobility for Persons with Disabilities in 2005, the social activities of the people with disabilities have increased and tourism has increased as well. Therefore, the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities should be implemented at the same time as meeting the heightened claim of the tourism rights of Koreans with disabilities. Accordingly, the Seoul Metropolitan Government has been reviewing parking areas, entrances, lifts, toilets, and information facilities of buildings to certify that there are no obstacles to people with disabilities. Policy efforts like this are being made, but with new investments being difficult at industrial sites, tourism studies in Korea are struggling to realize accessible tourism [9]. However, research in tourism is mainly justified by expanding demand for barrier-free services. Moreover, it is weak in pursuing social justice for equity of persons with disabilities; this may be due to insufficient rumination on the fact that there was discrimination against customers with disabilities in the process of providing services in the tourism and hospitality industries before the laws were enacted. Thus, this study determines that to explore and understand the process in which the parties are discriminated against is important. This is because discriminated people can have long-term negative effects on their physical and mental health in social relationships [10].

It is significant to consider exactly how this is differently expressed in tourism industry relationships, even though it is personal to have a prejudice against customers with disabilities. Institutionalizing equity in a society that has long discriminated against disabled customers begins by facing all the details of discrimination that customers with disabilities have suffered. Disability can only be scientifically and practically addressed if a sensitive look at the cultural, social, and psychological structures in which disability discrimination is taking place is taken [11]. Hence, the purpose of this paper is to enhance the understanding of the context in which discrimination against customers with disabilities occurs in the tourism and hospitality field and to discuss implications for the accessibility of sustainable tourism and hospitality industries in Seoul. In order to achieve the purpose of the paper, this study collects cases of discrimination experienced by customers with disabilities through an in-depth interview in Seoul and classifies the cases according to type, process, and degree.

2. Literature Review

2.1. Accessible Tourism and Services (Tourism for All)

The exploration of how tourism services for customers with disabilities is peculiar has continued, and it has been argued that it must be supplemented quantitatively and qualitatively to expand the tourism market for customers with disabilities [5]. Initially, these studies were divided into consumer and supplier perspectives. The former considers what customers with disabilities feel are more challenging than customers with nondisabilities, and the latter considers what the supplier lacks when dealing with customers with disabilities.

Existing travel packages are designed for customers with nondisabilities, so customers with disabilities go through their unique stages of traveling in this condition. Customers with disabilities must make resolutions and judgments that are not necessary for customers with nondisabilities when they decide to engage in tourism, which is the beginning of the stage. Furthermore, customers with disabilities go through a stage of psychological overcoming, not just a stage of physical overcoming, through tourism [3]. Studies from this perspective focus on the fact that people with disabilities have different conditions than customers with nondisabilities. As analyzing and predicting consumer behavior is very important, it is productive that these studies recognize customers with disabilities as part of demand and actively consider the behavior of customers with disabilities.

Meanwhile, obstacles to tourists with disabilities have been categorized as being due to the consumers themselves, the supply environment, and the interaction between demand and supply. The first is the intrinsic barrier, which is the tourist’s own cognitive, physical, and psychological condition. It is explained that there is a lag of knowledge in collecting tourist information, health-related problems, social ineffectiveness, and physical and psychological dependence. The second is the external environmental barrier, which refers to a problem that is not the customers with disabilities themselves. It includes the attitudinal barrier, a psychological problem that makes tourists with disabilities feel like outsiders. It also includes the architectural barrier, which is a physical element such as an ecological barrier, a transportation barrier, or a regulation barrier. The third is the interactive barrier, and it is explained by the communication barrier and the problem of the incongruity between the supplier’s skill and the customer’s challenge [2].

On the other hand, studies checking tourism service capabilities have further emphasized that the suppliers should fulfill the market needs for customers with disabilities. Managers of hospitality industries, such as hotels and travel agencies, are being offered to overcome their weaknesses in providing services to tourists with disabilities [12]. A study exploring travel motives and requirements for people with mobility disabilities reflected from the perception of customers with disabilities whether the travel agency is a travel promoter or suppressor [4]. This is in a similar vein to research [13] that travel agencies do not have a proper grasp of the needs of tourists with disabilities, and that poor preparation in terms of attitudes, travel agency products, quality of information provided, and communication can lead to subtle discrimination against customers with disabilities.

Recent studies, however, have found it important to remove obstacles with a universal and social-integrated perception rather than to reveal the fundamental reasons for the obstacles. Studies that insist on a universal design, especially at tourist attractions, hotels, and restaurants [7,14,15], do not value the argument that psychological, communicative, and physical constraints are created due to the unique characteristics of the customer’s individual disability. It is essential to replace tourism infrastructure with “accessible” conditions for customers of any physical condition, as any person can go through a period of physical discomfort at any time of his or her life [16,17]. Currently, studies based on the social equity of persons with disabilities have been developed into a variety of subjects. These research achievements have led to research experimenting with digital and mobile technology effectiveness for disability-inclusive city design [18]. Furthermore, effective and concrete agendas for stakeholders in the tourism industry have also been studied to accomplish accessible tourism [19]. The study about interconnecting mobilities on tour began with the problem of immobility or partial mobility of the tourists with vision impairment. The study presented the possibility of raising satisfaction together by including tourists with visual impairment, sighted tourists, and even sighted guides, arguing for the positive influence of the facilitation of mobility [20].

As mentioned above, prior research has been done in many ways to ensure that the physical disability of customers is not an obstacle during tourism. This study does not investigate customer inconvenience or site improvements but rather seeks to find subjective feelings from the experience of discrimination that customers with disabilities actually face. Based on that, this study will be able to enrich the complex and practical effects of the constraints and improvements revealed by the preceding studies and materialize accessible tourism and service strategies.

2.2. Discrimination Against Persons with Disabilities

Discrimination arises when "differential treatment" and "unreasonableness" are performed [21]; therefore, discrimination against customers with disabilities in the tourism and hospitality industries means giving more unreasonable treatment (service) to customers with disabilities than to customers with nondisabilities. However, discrimination does not occur just because the person with disabilities is physically different from the norm (person with nondisabilities). When the person with disabilities is deprived of or excluded from social and material opportunities that have been mainly composed for normal people [22], discrimination occurs in the process of being different.

There are many causes of disability discrimination, and prejudice is the most representative. Prejudice is to generalize the stereotype that all members of a particular group have the same specific attributes, accompanied by beliefs and negative and hostile attitudes [23,24,25]. Additionally, when society considers images such as beautiful bodies, healthy looks, productive forces, and strong power to be normal, the person with disabilities falls to the level of a bystander. Moreover, this is when the stigma occurs [26]. In a society that emphasizes individual achievement and economic success, physical disability is identified as a hindrance to it, creating discrimination against persons with disabilities [27]. In addition, the social environment is adjusted based on the person with nondisabilities, which is a large number of groups, and the person with disabilities in the minority group has no choice but to experience inconveniences from architecture to working conditions. It is pointed out that this imperfect environment hinders the social adaptation of people with disabilities [28,29]. On the contrary, however, society is not fair, where people with disabilities need compassion and help because their activities are inconvenient. This is because the person with disabilities may be perceived as being protected by society rather than a member of society, causing another source of discrimination [30].

In fact, since ancient society, mankind has considered persons with disabilities to be unable to adapt to society because they are inferior to persons with nondisabilities; after capitalism and industrial society, discriminatory structures have been established [27]. It is certain that when various human physical facilities were invented after the Industrial Revolution, they were produced on the premise that they were to be used by people with nondisabilities. This has created the present reality that persons with disabilities cannot be users of the social environment. Only recently, various fields, including pedagogy, women’s studies, and labor studies, have looked back and reflected on this kind of history and process of discrimination against persons with disabilities. The “inclusion” of people with disabilities, claimed by scholars such as Len Barton, had a significant impact on this perception [31]. Moreover, both the persons with disabilities and the persons with nondisabilities insist on normalization to recognize their differences on the premise that they can become part of society and have equity in rights, duties, and possibilities to others [32].

The tourism and hospitality industries have never had an old theoretical basis for excluding persons with disabilities. There are no interpretations such as the argument that people with disabilities are perceived as less adaptable to modern society in many ways, such as in the labor force and education, or that customers with disabilities should engage in tourism activities separately, with the argument that it is reasonable for them to live separately and receive an education. However, because tourism and hospitality industries have developed with the development of large-scale mobile, lodging, and dining facilities [33], they have accepted the trend of modern industrial facilities that exclude customers with disabilities without resistance. Therefore, based on the possibility that tourism has discriminated against customers with disabilities without being aware of their intentions or the seriousness of it, this study attempts to approach the reality of discrimination that exists in tourism and hospitality industries and make suggestions for normalization.

3. Methodology

3.1. Ethnographic Approach

As this study seeks to collect and analyze discriminative experiences where only customers with disabilities feel sensitive to cultural, social, and psychological structures, it carries out appropriate qualitative research in order to approach the issues subjectively and deeply [34]. In particular, the ethnographic approach is a method of research that interprets the pattern of values, actions, beliefs, and languages of a group that shares a particular culture [35]. Thus, the ethnographic approach is recognized as a suitable way for disability studies, which allows people with disabilities to speak on their own and extends the scope of research [36]. In the early 20th century, anthropologists developed and diversified their approaches by applying them to comparative cultural anthropology practices and theories [37]. Among them, the study of critical ethnography is an appropriate approach to explaining unequal situations and collective imbalances from a position that advocates the liberation of marginalized groups in society [38,39]. Since this article is intended to interpret the fixed discrimination and evaluation of the underprivileged class, critical ethnography is considered appropriate.

The research questions were derived based on qualitative research methodologies, including ethnography [40,41,42], and consist of a central question to draw out the experiences of research participants and subquestions to probe the specific context.

The central question:

• How is the individual treated discriminatingly in the hospitality and tourism industry?

Subquestions:

• What are the reasons and processes for the situation, and who is involved in the situation?
• What do individuals feel and think about the situation?
• How would a tourism study interpret the revealed experiences of the individuals’ discrimination?

3.2. Study Participants and Ethics

In order to find participants in the research within a specific group, participant observation was preceded by attending a joint discussion on human rights issues for persons with disabilities in Seoul, Korea, in 2018. The forum commemorated the 10th anniversary of the enforcement of the antidiscrimination law against persons with disabilities in Korea, with the subtitle of culture, tourism, and arts activities for persons with disabilities. Thus, the appropriate participants were sampled to state their experience of discrimination in tourism activities for persons with disabilities during the discussions [43]. Since it was based on sampling whether various experiences can be provided as research materials, persons with disabilities who had more than one overseas trip experience and three domestic travel experiences were selected. In addition, considering the possibility that the experience of discrimination may vary depending on the type of disability, as shown in

Table 1. The participants.

ID	Age	Gender	Condition of the Disability
Participant 1	30s	M	Difficulty accessing visual information
Participant 2	50s	M	Difficulty accessing visual information
Participant 3	40s	F	Difficulty accessing auditory information
Participant 4	40s	M	Difficulty accessing auditory information
Participant 5	50s	M	Using a wheelchair
Participant 6	30s	F	Using a wheelchair
Participant 7	30s	F	Using a wheelchair

, two visually impaired persons, two hearing-impaired persons, and three wheelchair users were selected.

3.3. Data Collection and Analysis

The purpose of the research, the process of interviewing, and the guarantee of anonymity were explained, and the consent of the research participation and the interview recording was obtained prior to the in-depth interview. One study participant was mediated by an activity assistant, and another study participant was accompanied by a sign language interpreter. The interviews took 50 to 200 min flexibly, according to each of the participant’s verbal communication rates. It was deemed necessary to build trust between interviewees and researchers before in-depth interviews because the researcher is a person with nondisabilities. Thus, the interview was conducted at the second meeting to ask research questions after forming some intimacy through the introduction of the researcher, overview of the research contents, daily conversations, and general travel experience conversations. The recorded in-depth interview material was scripted and, immediately after completion, the script was discarded.

4. Findings

To ensure the validity and reliability of the research, whether the abovementioned unreasonable treatment, deprivation of opportunity, or exclusion (only because of the participant’s physical condition) exists is considered a criterion of judgment. The data obtained from the interviews were classified as significant or not significant according to the results. Moreover, the results were analyzed according to the patterns of discrimination, which are (1) discrimination by physical facilities, (2) discrimination by human services and service regulations, and (3) discrimination by other travelers.

4.1. Discrimination by Physical Facilities

The physical environment associated with tourism consists of cultural sites preserved from ancient times or modern infrastructure in the hospitality and tourism industries, both of which mostly consider only the activities of customers with nondisabilities. Therefore, although the tourism activities of customers with disabilities were not intentionally excluded from the hospitality and tourism industries, it is clear that the tourism activities of customers with disabilities are on unequal conditions with those of customers with nondisabilities. For this reason, participants are directly discriminated against by the physical environment.

First, the research participants’ experience of discrimination by physical facilities revealed a lack of understanding about essential facilities. Participant 7 claimed that the deficiency of charging facilities for electric wheelchairs at tourist sites was due to a lack of understanding.

“Customers with nondisabilities may think of wheelchairs as a personal convenience, but the customers with disabilities think wheelchairs are their legs. It’s part of my body. The absence of a cell phone charger or a camera charger in a tourist destination is an inconvenience that applies equally to everyone. But if there’s a bench where you can rest when your legs are overloaded, and there’s no electric wheelchair charger, I’m being discriminated against.”

When told by a researcher that a charging station could not be built in a natural environment without any electricity, Participant 7 additionally answered as follows.

“Then you should have informed me in advance that there is no charging facility. You told people who walk on their feet to wear comfortable shoes because they have to walk a long distance. Don’t you think you should tell me to get a hand-operated wheelchair since I’m going a long way to get rid of the electric wheelchair battery?”

As the above interview shows, the difference between the parts for convenience and for necessity is perceived vaguely in tourism environments.

Secondly, the lack of understanding of the pursuit of the participants’ desires was discovered. Participant 4 said that because he is deaf, he cannot ride a roller-coaster at an amusement park. As roller-coasters are facilities that pose an accident risk, users can be prevented from boarding according to their physical conditions. Inaudibility, however, is not a factor that makes it more dangerous for a hearing-impaired person to ride on a roller-coaster. Since it is dangerous not to be informed about boarding, getting off, or precautions, they can ride roller-coasters if a means of delivery is provided for the hearing-impaired and visually impaired persons. Participants 5 and 6 like to be outdoors and explained their experiences of not being able to climb up the mountain because it has a stairway on a slope that is sufficiently accessible by a wheelchair. The above interviews show that the tourism environment does not distinguish between the abilities and desires of customers with disabilities. In the tourism and hospitality industries, it does not matter “what kind of tourism activities customers with nondisabilities can do”. Only “what kind of tourism activities do they want” is considered, and there are requirements to meet these desires, from which customers can perform the desired tourism activities. The tourism and hospitality industries generate customer satisfaction and tourism profit through this process. However, the abilities and desires of customers with disabilities are not distinguished.

Third, there was a misunderstanding that there was a difference in the criteria for choosing high value-added products, which is explained by the case of Participant 6. Participant 6 cannot use low-cost airlines for his wheelchairs. Due to the lack of boarding bridges at international airports, the aircraft of low-cost airlines usually pick up passengers at locations that are not directly connected to the airport. Passengers travel by shuttle bus to the aircraft and enter the aircraft via a stepcar, which does not accommodate wheelchair users who cannot climb the stairs. In the tourism and hospitality industries, customers sometimes have to buy more expensive products to suit their convenience and preference, which shows that customers with disabilities may not have a choice.

This article analyzes several results by investigating the experience of discrimination by physical facilities. The tourism environment has recently been trying to get closer to customers with disabilities by introducing universal designs, but there is still a lack of understanding. There is not only a lack of separate toilets for customers with disabilities, wheelchair access passageways, and braille maps, but also a lack of continuous checks to ensure that no exclusion or opportunity breaks occur while the customer is motivated to be a tourist.

4.2. Discrimination by Human Resource and Service Regulations

Human resources in the tourism and hospitality industries deal mostly with customers with nondisabilities. Until the expansion of legal guarantees led to an increase in tourism activities for customers with disabilities, these human resources have not had much experience in customer service for customers with disabilities; therefore, they do not understand customers with disabilities at a universal level in society. In this situation, personal preconceptions are revealed in the service delivery process as each of the human resources treat customers with disabilities with judgments based on their own personal values.

First, in the case of the research participants’ experience of discrimination by human resource services, a lack of understanding about self-reliance was analyzed. Participant 5 said that he received various services when he was buying drinks at a restaurant because he could not hold a glass with his handicapped arms.

“A kind employee once put the glass down on the table and asked if he would feed me with it. Then I just asked for a straw. Of course, I need more help than a person with free arms. But the help that makes me drink are different form the help that makes me drink myself.”

The case shows that service providers are not aware that customers with disabilities can consume products just like customers with nondisabilities. Customers buy drinks for the pleasure of drinking what they want to drink. Customers with disabilities are also buying what they want to drink on their own, not what they have to drink. The case mentioned by Participant 1 also includes a lack of understanding of independence. Participant 1 feels discriminated against whenever he sees the slogan of a package tour by a travel agency for customers with disabilities called “caring travel”. Care is about managing a person who cannot decide or take responsibility for himself or herself; however, travel agencies do not need to take care of their customers’ disabilities. Providing specialized services to enable customers to travel their way is different from caring for disabilities. Similar results have been revealed in the experience of Participant 7.

“When I couldn’t cross the threshold with a wheelchair, the front door staff suddenly came back and pushed my wheelchair away. And smiled kindly and courteous. But I couldn’t smile or thank him. The feeling I felt at that time was really ridiculous and unfair. It was the fault of the hotel that there was a threshold. The hotel that made me inaccessible should apologize, but what did the employee mean by kindness? It’s what helped me not to get over it. Very kindly! There is a real wide gap between his and mine.”

Secondly, as explained by the experience of Participant 2, there is a misconception that customers with disabilities are disposed of by common propensity.

“I don’t eat out at all except for a few regular restaurants, because I feel bad when I go into a restaurant, the employees whisper among themselves. Maybe it’s a kind of information sharing that they need to pay attention to me, but I feel humiliated to talk about me in my hearing. I don’t see it, but it’s not that I don’t hear it.”

This is a problem, where service providers with nondisabilities do not feel that the circumstances of inconvenience for customers with disabilities are all different. In this case, service providers evaluated and communicated the customer’s appearance, which is an unfair treatment that customers with nondisabilities would not have received. Analysis of the causes of such discrimination shows that it is not imprinted that customers with nondisabilities do not have the same physical condition. There is a lack of understanding that customers with disabilities are not an inferior group in every way.

According to the results, discrimination by human resource services is not due to lack of kindness or mercy, but rather a lack of understanding of customers with disabilities.

4.3. Discrimination by Other Customers

Customers with nondisabilities often express their displeasure when accompanying customers with disabilities. The research participants were not treated the same, even though they were buyers of the same product. However, the research participants’ experiences have found that the troubles were not caused by customers with nondisabilities but by the tourism and hospitality industries.

Firstly, customers with nondisabilities find it more inconvenient to be serviced alongside customers with disabilities when their physical facility base for customers with disabilities is insufficient. When Participant 6 boarded a city tour bus without a wheelchair lift, the driver of the city tour bus apologized for not having a lift installed and kindly carried her on the bus. However, due to the delay in boarding time, she had to listen to unfair words that amounted to discrimination against customers with disabilities from other passengers. Participant 6 compared this experience to the experience of touring on a city tour bus designed as a low-floor bus in other cities.

“I think there is a difference between having physical facilities and not having them. Low-floor buses give passengers the assumption that people who use them often don’t use wheelchairs, but there may be people who use them. Unconsciously, there is a natural atmosphere among the passengers. On the other hand, buses that do not have wheelchair boarding facilities are considered to be causing inconvenience to many others as they challenge the impossible with the individual greed of customer with disability. This creates the justification for discrimination. In the first place, I would be a passenger who was less qualified than a person with nondisability. If they have to get changeable their service because of me, there would be an invisible wall between the other passengers and me.”

Discrimination against customers with disabilities from customers with nondisabilities is partly due to the city tour bus’ lack of proper physical facilities, despite having friendly human resource services.

Secondly, unfair remarks because of the lack of sensitivity of the other customers to disability equity were explained. Participant 7 said that every time she rode a cable car at a tourist site or took an elevator at a hotel, she always gave up her place in the queue to other customers and got on the next one. She was entitled to ask for her place in the order, but other customers thought they were unreasonably delayed by her wheelchair. Participant 3 travels with her spouse, who is nondisabled and always receives unique praise from other travelers.

“I can’t hear, but I can recognize what the other person is saying by looking at their mouth. But because it’s sometimes not accurate, and I don’t hear sounds coming from places I can’t see, my husband takes care of me in sign language. However, people I meet while our traveling always praise my husband as a good partner of me. It’s a compliment for being married me and traveling with me even though I’m deaf, and it’s a really rude compliment to me. It’s true that my disability makes me uncomfortable together, but objectively, I live with more bad conditions for my husband. The people I met on the trip don’t praise or pretend to know such a marital situation.”

This is a little more complicated than the previous case. It is because customers with nondisabilities are not only a high proportion of demand of the tourism and hospitality industries, but also because service providers should not be involved with their personal values. However, the phenomenon of an individual being offended by a certain person is an extremely subjective matter, and although the individuals cannot control their personal feelings, they cannot be allowed to express their personal displeasure to other individuals either. This is because customers with disabilities have the right to receive the same treatment. Therefore, it should be noted that the absence of mediation of human resource services in the differences in positions between customers creates discrimination.

5. Discussion

This article begins with the view that the research of accessible tourism should not only find justification for increasing demand but also have the ultimate purpose of seeking justice for an equitable society. To this end, prior research on accessible tourism was theoretically outlined, and the concepts, causes, and aspects of disability discrimination were considered. In addition, cases of discrimination in the tourism and hospitality industries were classified and analyzed by customers with disabilities. The findings of the study were categorized into seven sections, depending on the type of lack of understanding of customers with disabilities. These findings include unreasonable differential treatment based on customer disability and had aspects of disability discrimination mentioned above. In other words, service providers have a stereotypical view [23] that customers with disabilities have similar attributes, and they also fail to free customers with disabilities from the prejudice [24,25] of customers with nondisabilities, who have generalized the group with disabilities with a negative and hostile attitude. Moreover, tourist attractions, lodging, and dining infrastructure caused a stigma [26] that lowered the activities of customers with disabilities to bystanders or made customers with disabilities more recognized as social protection targets [30] rather than members of society. From the findings of this study, it has become clear that discrimination is occurring in the tourism and hospitality industries in the treatment of customers with disabilities. Therefore, marketing implications can be discussed in terms of physical facilities and human resource services at the key points where discrimination against customers with disabilities occurs, as seen from the results of this study.

First of all, increasing the understanding of the activity characteristics of customers with disabilities should precede, and tourism products should be produced and marketed. Even though a universal design has been actively introduced in the tourism and hospitality industries, discrimination cannot be overcome by just replacing facilities. Realistically, it is difficult to install a perfectly convenient physical environment, not only for customers with disabilities, but also for customers with nondisabilities. However, since there is movement flow, the essential infrastructure for customers with nondisabilities is understandable as there is no facility that makes their tourism activities impossible. However, as the findings have shown, customers with disabilities may not be guaranteed basic infrastructure, may only be able to be active by purchasing high value-added products, and may also be prevented from being in the same position as other customers. That is, in order for the physical environment of tourism and hospitality industries to become more accessible, the activity characteristics of customers with disabilities must be more clearly emphasized, and the key issues that enhance equity for customers with disabilities must be pointed out. In addition, the gap between customer desire and customer ability is a must for efficient marketing. In the case of customers with nondisabilities, who have been regarded as customers by the tourism and hospitality industries so far, there is no need to think about whether they can do the tourism activities. A customer who is good at sports may like a static travel style, or a customer who is not good at climbing may like to take pictures on the top of a mountain. For example, when planning a trekking holiday, travel agencies usually target trek-loving customers, but not specifically those with legs that climb up the mountain fast. However, they unconsciously target customers with legs that can climb mountains. This reveals a key point of discrimination against customers with disabilities. Customers with disabilities argue that wheelchair users, like customers with nondisabilities, have both a love of challenge and leisure as well as a love of static activities, and that even if they are wheelchair users, they should be able to purchase trekking holiday for the desire to climb a mountain and not for the ability to climb the mountain. In conclusion, because the intent of customer purchase and physical conditions do not necessarily coincide, it is important to stream the consciousness that physical facilities can be tailored to meet the needs of the market. Additionally, having basic facilities is not the same as making more attractive products. For customers with nondisabilities, the toilets at a tourist site are only an essential facility, and the purchase is motivated by the attraction of the tourist destination experience. Likewise, customers with disabilities do not want to go to certain tourist attractions just because they have toilets for customers with disabilities, so it is fair to have toilets for customers with disabilities in places where they can do their desired tourism activities. Moreover, at this time, high value-added products that are able to provide greater convenience might be developed incidentally. Research for the development and marketing of accessible travel packages [44] has revealed that customers with disabilities have a higher willingness to pay for transportation and accommodation with accessible facilities; however, providing the necessities and investing in high value-added products for increased satisfaction should be marketed with discernment.

Next, the boundaries of human service roles should be found. As the results of this study show, human resource services in the tourism and hospitality industries do not understand the individual characteristics of customers with disabilities or even replace activities in which customers enjoy their own actions and challenges. Most of all, service providers should be thoroughly aware that customers with disabilities are not a special target market with similar needs. In the case of hands-on tourism, activities for customers’ children can be set up for the strategies of educational purposes and physical strength. However, customers with similar disabilities do not lead to similar tourism needs. These service providers’ misconceptions about customers with disabilities’ desires might be from the misunderstanding of this part of society [45]. If human resources in tourism and hospitality industries are allowed to overcome the level of misunderstanding, respectively, human resource services will be seriously unequal because of their individual values. Therefore, it is necessary to collectively train them on the rights of customers with disabilities, the social responsibilities of enterprises, and the marketing implications for customers with disabilities. It is also important that human resource services should have a role in arbitrating conflicts with customers with nondisabilities, as well as providing fair service to customers with disabilities.

6. Conclusions

The first priority is to improve the awareness of customers with disabilities for sustainable tourism. Since persons with disabilities have long been socially marginalized, it can be realized that there has been a problematic perception of customers with disabilities by listening to their experiences of being discriminated against. In other words, self-reflection on discrimination against customers with disabilities is essential for social maturity, apart from forcing institutions to guarantee the social activities of persons with disabilities. It is meaningful to try this in the field of tourism and services. By pursuing an essential understanding of how discrimination actually occurs, this study seeks to clarify and enrich the limitations of tourism for customers with disabilities and narrow the gap between customers with disabilities and service providers with nondisabilities. This research is based on arguments that disability research is important to understand how disabilities become conspicuous within a broad context of the connected relationships [36].

Several future studies are proposed based on the argument to stop recognizing people with disabilities as a single special group and to increase sensitivity to customers with disabilities from the viewpoints of balance and equity. First, the type of disability between disability and nondisability or their distinction is only a demographic variable, such as gender or age, and is not a causal variable for tourism activities and service content. Just as there may be female customers who are more adventurous than males, so should the tourism needs of customers with disabilities be unrelated to their physical conditions. The correlation between preferred tourism patterns and wheelchair use and visual or auditory information acquisition should also be analyzed. Next, the effectiveness of the costly investment of physical facilities for customers with disabilities should be demonstrated. Various economic data should be analyzed on whether revenue can be generated beyond the actual break-even point. Additionally, public investment is needed to boost tourism for customers with disabilities, who are vulnerable to employment, if profits of for-profit companies are not guaranteed. The socioeconomic effects of countries (cases) that invest publicly in accessible tourism facilities and those that invest in private income (cases) should be measured. Finally, it is also urgent to explore ways to standardize human resource services. Only when the sensitivity to disability equity is enhanced and the minds of the service industry mature can tourism demand for customers with disabilities grow fundamentally. These future studies will affect the perception that tourism products and services available to customers with nondisabilities are also accessible to customers with disabilities, contribute to the marketing of new accessible tourism products, and help the tourism and hospitality industries keep pace with the recent trend of normalization [32].