[pieterghijsels]

Visit Flanders is a government organization. It’s the Tourism administration for the region (we don’t have a national tourism organization in Belgium). As the ministry for Tourism, Visit Flanders has its say on the development and promotion of Flanders. However, regular tourism education is the ministry of Education’s responsibility. We do have a set of training methods about accessible tourism, tailor-made for desk staff, management, tour guides, travel agents, etc. These sessions are not mandatory, so it depends on the people’s willingness to follow such a training. Some sessions take half a day, the more in-depth formula takes a full day and comes with a team of coaches with different disabilities. We’ve also started with online introductory sessions.

So, that’s why I’m interested to hear other countries’ take on (mandatory) training, as a quality standard.