Tuesday, February 2, 2016

Arriving in Groningen: an introduction

Hello everybody!

I'm Alison McIntosh, from New Zealand. I'm going on holiday in the Netherlands. I have chosen to go to Groningen, a city in the northern part of the Netherlands. I hope this will be a wonderful trip. I will give you some travel tips and, since I'm a tourism scholar, introduce you to some interesting tourism theories. I am very interested in heritage tourism, traveling with disabilities, and tourist behavior. My goals are giving a varied view of Groningen, making clear how important accessible tourism is and seeing Groningen through the eyes of a tourist, not only as a tourism scholar.

Today I made a long trip. First I flew from New Zealand to Schiphol Airport, Amsterdam. To reach Groningen, I had to take the train. It only took two hours to get there.

When I'm travelling, I think it is interesting to look around and see how accessible a place is for people with a disability. When you are on an airplane, you only have a small place to sit. When you're in a wheelchair, this could be very discomforting. You are not allowed to take your wheelchair, which feels as a part of your body, with you on the plane. It is also possible that staff will speak to you in an inappropriate way. But mostly, there is nothing wrong with the brains of somebody in a wheelchair. These things will lead to disembodied air travel experiences (Darcy, 2012). This are feelings that you're not complete, for example because you cannot sit in your own wheelchair.

When I arrived in Amsterdam and went to the train, I was positively surprised to see that there is train staff that is willing to help you to get on the train. There is enough space for a wheelchair in the train. So people who are in a wheelchair will not feel disembodied when travelling by train in the Netherlands.

So I arrived at Groningen. The first impression was very nice. I am curious about what I will experience the upcoming week.

I'll write more soon!
The beautiful old railwaystation.
Unfortunately they were renovating it,
 you can see this at the left side of the building.
References

Darcy, S. (2012) (Dis)embodied Air Travel Experiences: Disability, Discrimination and the Affect of a Discontinuous Air Travel Chain. Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Management, 19, 1-8.




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