Irena Szewczyk

This paper presents an overview of the issues related to the readiness of Polish hotel establishments to develop the business tourism services for disabled tourists. The purpose of this study is to identify new innovative amenities for business tourism, with particular emphasis on disabled tourists.
The paper has been divided into two parts: theoretical approach to disabled hotel guests in business hotel and the needs of disabled in the Polish business hotels. The authors conducted a study on Polish business hotels. Studies have confirmed that business hotels, like traditional hotels, are not accessible to people with disabilities.
The study established a research hypothesis, which was proved in findings, i.e. the hotels are not prepared for older people and people with disabilities. Besides, the research results substantiated the necessity of the business hotels adaption to the needs of disable people. Also, the paper presents the suggestions on what the disabled guests expect from the Polish business hotels. In respect of doing this, further investments and financial support are necessary to allow creating friendly conditions for the disabled people.

The key assumption of public transport is the overall accessibility for all its users. Lack of adjustments or only partial adjustments of the touristic transport infrastructure to the needs of elderly and disabled persons constitutes a barrier for their free mobility. The study aims to formalize measures to improve public transport activities by identifying the problems of the disabled and the elderly while traveling. The article presents an assessment of the current state and recognizing the most important problems of the physically disabled and elderly persons in the mobility in the city using public transport.
The research part of the article attempts to assess the availability of solutions in public transport for the physically disabled and elderly persons. For practical simplification, the article focuses on the mass transport implemented by the only possible means of this type of transport for the research is a bus.
In line with the predefined criterion, one city from the region of Bielsko-Biała was included into the research – city Szczyrk. In the article, the diagnostic survey was used as the best research method. The basic technique for collecting the empirical data was the open participating observation using the observation sheet. The basic research was complemented by the direct survey of disabled persons with various levels of disabilities to achieve intended results.
The research concluded that the mobility of disabled persons in the transport processes was assessed positively despite multiple difficulties and obstacles caused by their limited mobility and the lack of transport infrastructure adjustments (bus stops or information systems).