The German city of Frankfurt recently reviewed its entire range of city tours with the aim of making them comprehensively barrier-free, adding new tours and restructuring existing ones in the process.

Now the city's tourist office has published a new brochure developed specifically for disabled travellers. It promotes Frankfurt’s tourist attractions, focusing in particular on their ease of accessibility and various other disability-friendly aspects.

The Barrier-free Frankfurt am Main brochure - published in A4 format with print and layout designed for vision-impaired readers - has specific information on facilities at sightseeing attractions, festivals or trade shows, such as wheelchair access, toilets for disabled persons or whether they permit guide dogs on the premises. There's similar detailed information on the accessibility of Frankfurt Int’l Airport, the main train station and the city’s public transportation network as a whole. Moreover, it provides a selection of relevant addresses, such as those of pharmacies and medical supply stores. A separate leaflet lists the contact details of hotels featuring particularly wheelchair-friendly guest-rooms. Finally, the brochure also includes a special city map indicating public toilets and parking spaces for the handicapped as well as a comprehensive plan of the metro, tram & bus network.

The tourist office’s range of guided city tours has also been redesigned in recent months. The tours now provide even greater barrier freedom for disabled participants. The newly developed “Feeling Frankfurt” tour pays particular attention to the needs of vision-impaired persons, featuring many anecdotes, touch objects and taste tests. All of the city’s public guided tours may be adapted to be fully wheelchair-accessible, with sign language interpreters available upon prior request.

Frankfurt recognises that special assistance is often required, not only by handicapped individuals but parents with strollers or prams, travellers with heavy luggage and an increasing number of senior citizens, so by making the city more accessible they are addressing the needs of a significant and growing segment of the tourism market.