A community on Victoria’s south coast has banded together to make beach holidays more accessible to people with disabilities. Port Campbell’s surf lifesaving club hosted an accessibility day on its beach last year, and it prompted local businesses to think about how they could make changes to attract tourists with special mobility needs.
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00:00The beach at Port Campbell is John Wilson's happy place, but for 30 years he couldn't
00:08touch the ocean.
00:09I guess at the time I didn't worry too much about it because I thought, oh well, that's
00:14what it is.
00:15But that changed when John attended a beach inclusion day at the Surf Lifesaving Club
00:19last summer.
00:20To suddenly find that there's ways of being able to access the beach, yes, very special.
00:28The community recognised an opportunity to make a difference.
00:31In the years since, accessible matting, beach wheelchairs and walking frames have been donated
00:36to the club, and local business owners got on board.
00:39I became more aware of what we now call accessibility, and it just seemed to make sense.
00:46When Georgie Salmon was creating luxury accommodation along the Great Ocean Road, it was pushing
00:51her twins around in a pram that made her stop and think about accessibility.
00:55It really opened my eyes to perhaps what other people might face every day, no matter what
01:01they're doing.
01:02She sought guidance on how to make her accommodation as inclusive as possible, and says more tourism
01:07businesses should give it a go.
01:09If we could do things to make it better here, then why wouldn't we?
01:14There's a lot of operators who just think this is just a little niche area.
01:17They are leaving money on the table.
01:19They're missing out.
01:21In towns like Port Campbell, a whole-of-community approach to accessibility is giving holiday
01:26options to the millions of Australians who live with a disability.
01:30To see others similar to myself out there in the sea and on the surfboards, and having
01:40a whale of a time.
01:42Making a beach holiday a reality for those who need it most.