Accessible tourism for the deaf via mobile apps

Accessible tourism seeks to integrate people with impaired abilities -e.g. mobility, vision, hearing- in travel and leisure activities. The attention to this field has been growing in the past decade, thanks also to technological advancements in smart devices. This paper illustrates the enterprise of accessible tourism applications for smartphones and tablets, tailored for a Deaf Community audience. Specifically, we designed, developed and tested two apps for visiting indoor/outdoor archaeological sites. The apps were implemented for the National Roman Museum Palazzo Massimo, and the open-air archaeological excavation site of Ostia Antica, both in Rome, Italy. The apps are available for free download/use, and have been awarded the European Excellence Award for Accessible Tourism in Brussels, Belgium (2014).