Theme Parks, Imaginary Worlds, and Real Access


  • Grand Canyon, or Yellowstone National Parks in the US
  • Ngongoro, Kilimanjaro, or Serengeti in Tanzania

    • Another type of park may exist to preserve a place that is entirely manmade because of its historical or cultural purpose. In this sort of park observation is secondary to preservation. In fact, entry into some buildings may be entirely prohibited - or the preserved architectural features, such as stairways for example, may make entry difficult or impossible for someone with a mobility disability.

    A third type of park may obliterate the original local features that were either built or natural. This is often the strategy taken by theme parks. Theme parks create a coherent artificial space. By doing so theme parks acquire a degree of ethical responsibility not shared by the previous types of park.

    Degrees of Responsibility

    Theme parks have a responsibility to be 100% accessible.

    Why? Because they can be 100% accessible in the way that the natural environment of a national park or the historically authentic environment of an enclave of the past cannot. Theme parks have a responsibility to be accessible because of the definitions of disability and of discrimination.

    Some individuals carry a certain deficit in capacity. In English we call the lack of capacity a "disability." Some modifications change the environment making it useable only to those with that capacity. To build a system, building, product, or ideology that does not allow for the participation of persons with differing capacities is to discriminate, to isolate, to leave "outside."

    We call the lack of access through design "a handicap." A handicap is a socially constructed reality that prevents social participation on the basis of difference in capacity.

    Medicine may have something to say about improving capacity. Universal Design is the solution to the lack of access.

    Universal Design

    Universal Design starts with the fundamental assertion that people with disabilities are consumers. Universal Design is about engineering the full inclusion of the widest range of consumers - offering them appropriate choices in the marketplace and the dignity of participation.

    In the end, the meaning of inclusion is social participation. Social participation is the second psychological meaning of "inside."

    A theme park that "names" a visitor as anything but a full participant in every activity that it offers names the visitor an "outsider." It breaks the magic.

    Magic by Design

    Theme parks tell a story. Their magic comes from allowing visitors to participate in their story.

    The measure of theme park accessibility is

    The copyright of the article Theme Parks, Imaginary Worlds, and Real Access in Travel & Disability is owned by Scott Paul Rains. Permission to republish Theme Parks, Imaginary Worlds, and Real Access in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.

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