Stuttering in preschool age children
In order to provide appropriate care to preschoolers who stutter, accurate advice and timely referral are essential. With ...
project
MindTour
Mindful tourist services for intellectually disabled people
The project MindTour stands for 'Mindful tourist services for people with mental impairment'. It was an Erasmus + funded project that aimed at making cultural heritage attractions (with a special focus on museums) more accessible to people with mental impairment through the use of service design.
What is MindTour?
With MindTour, we created support for tourism organisations (such as museums) to enable them to understand and value persons with mental impairment and their families, together with guidelines towards designing tourism services that make cultural heritage sites (with an emphasis on museums) more accessible and enjoyable. The ultimate goal was to ensure an improved visitor experience, not only for people with mental impairment, but for all.
Results
Within this research project, we create a situational scan of several current regional tourism services, from different countries, for people with mental impairment. The project partners then developed and tested a service design prototype for each country. For Belgium, this is the Museum Dr Guislain in Ghent. An implementation roadmap was then developed for the creation and scaling-up of the prototypes. Finally, a guiding tool (in the form of a guidebook and self-assessment tool) was developed to assess the accessibility of tourist services for people with mental impairment. This guiding tool was published through various channels and methods (website, social media, blogs, meetings, seminars, public events, reports, brochures and academic articles).
Awarded EU Presidency Label
From 1 January 2024 to 30 June 2024, Belgium is in charge of the Presidency of the Council of the European Union. The Mindtour project was selected and awarded the EU Presidency label for this period because of its contribution to the rich heritage, and the accessibility of heritage in Flanders, Belgium. This award is accompanied by a public event where the project’s contributions will be showcased in March of 2024.
Disclaimer
The European Commission’s support for the project and its outputs does not imply endorsement of the content. The contents reflect the views of the authors and the Commission cannot be held liable for any use that may be made of the information contained therein.
Partners
The main research partner in Belgium was the Dr Guislain Museum in Ghent. Research partners from other countries included the University of Latvia, Zeit Hotel (Latvia), TARTU Ulikool University (Estonia) and Pärnu Museum (Estonia).
A growing number of experts, tourism organisations and museums provided valuable input, such as Iedereen Leest, Faro, Kompas, ENAT, Konekt, FEG and Hof van Busleyden.
Researchers
Researcher
Marco Scholtz
Marco Scholtz is a senior researcher in Innovative Tourism. He currently focuses on cultural heritage tourism and tourist accessibility. He is also a lecturer for the courses 'Tourism Research' and 'Tourism Destinations'.
Researcher
Nansi Van Geetsom
Nansi has a background in interior architecture and education and instructional sciences. Her current research focuses on the systemic approach to space and service design, emphasizing social inclusion and impactful entrepreneurship.
Onderzoeker
Leen Van Aken
Leen Van Aken is Master in architectuur, Lektor in ergonomie en duurzaam ontwerpen. En werkt nu als onderzoeker bij Thomas More.
Research line coordinator
Dorien Vandenborre
Dorien Vandenborre (PhD) has been a lecturer-researcher at the People and Well-being Expertise Centre since 2015. She has expertise in neurogenic communication disorders and qualitative research (in-depth interviews).
Projects
