The essentials for inclusive guiding

The most important thing for guiding people who have special needs is to treat them equally as you would treat any other tourist. Certainly, some things require extra knowledge and these essentials are collected here. During our selection process, you will receive some further tips about guiding before our trial walk.

Visually impaired people can be classified into several categories based on their vision. Furthermore, everyone has their own preferences, someone feels safe when they are the active party, and for someone, the opposite is true. If, for example, someone comes with a guide dog, that person may not even ask for help for most of the walk and you definitely shouldn’t force anything. Since the standard guiding technique is not ideal for everyone, it is very important to ask the tourist’s preferences at the very beginning of the walk. You should also ask for feedback while walking. The following video authentically illustrates the standard guiding technique of a visually impaired person.

It is also important to communicate while walking, to indicate if there is an obstacle or if there are stairs ahead or the stairs just ended. Also, use the words “down” and “up” for stairs, and if there is a handrail, say so. You should also ask if the pace is comfortable. If you want to fit in a tight space, the sighted person goes in front and they can indicate this by bending their elbow and placing their guiding arm slightly behind their back. If we want to show something, be it a statue or a seat, then after consent, move the visually impaired person’s hand and place it on the given object.

People with reduced mobility can also be classified into several categories based on their ability of physical mobility, and they can use several types of devices to facilitate transportation. Depending on this, they also require different amounts of external help, which is why prior communication is highly important. Electric wheelchairs are usually handled alone, and assistance is usually required for active wheelchairs, i.e., wheelchairs pushed by hand, also called manual wheelchairs.

You don’t need to be too worried about anything when using expressions, because expressions such as “we are walking” are also said by people using wheelchairs. As we said before, in the same way that it is inappropriate to refer to a person with an adjective, you shouldn't refer to people with reduced mobility, such as “the disableds,” use “disabled people” instead.

There are multiple categories of people with hearing loss based on their quality of hearing. Raising your voice and talking about the information at a place where the background noise is reduced can sometimes be enough. Furthermore, it is particularly important, especially if someone is reading your lips, that you turn towards them or the group while you are speaking.

If needed and it is requested before booking, we will try to provide a sign language interpreter to any of our routes to translate the speech of our guides.