Accessible tourism in the city of Madrid is within reach of the international traveller. The municipal company Madrid Destino has launched a new English version of its Tourism Guide for English-speaking visitors with disabilities. It is a reference publication that contains useful information on almost 300 tourism resources in the capital, including hotels, monuments, museums, restaurants, shops and theatres.

The guide provides exhaustive information, collected in situ by PREDIF experts, on accessibility in 161 hotels, 43 museums and exhibition halls, 28 restaurants, 16 theatres and cinemas, 14 shopping centres, 9 tourist information points, 8 monuments, 7 conference and trade fair venues, and 4 leisure activities.

One of its main novelties is the incorporation of 18 new accommodation options and 20 new tourism resources, such as the Conde Duque and Matadero Madrid cultural centres, San Antón market and the Madrid City Tour bus.

The complete publication may be downloaded from the City of Madrid's official tourism website: http://www.esmadrid.com/en/access-madrid

This is the second edition in English (there are six editions of the Spanish version). This publication was created in close collaboration with the State Representative Platform for the Physically Disabled (PREDIF) and with the collaboration and support of some of the most noteworthy Spanish institutions in the world of accessibility and tourism.

The guide also provides seven accessible routes around the capital, one more than the previous edition, giving details of the facilities that may be found by disabled people visiting these areas of Madrid.

These routes allow you to discover some of the capital's iconic places, such as the Art Walk, the Royal Palace and its surroundings, Gran Vía, the Literary Quarter, the Salamanca district, Chueca and Argüelles. For each of them, you can easily locate detailed information on accessibility to different tourist attractions in each area: its monuments and cultural spaces, its places of interest for visitors, its accommodation, and its car parks and metro stations.

In its commitment to tourism for everyone, Madrid Destino, which is responsible for the promotion of culture and tourism in the capital, also takes parts in initiatives, forums and meetings on accessible tourism, and creates a Programme of Guided Tours every year that includes special routes for people with physical, hearing, sight and intellectual disabilities.

In 2013, 184 adapted guided tours were given and over 2,700 disabled people went on them. Programming for these routes can be checked on Madrid's official tourism website: www.esmadrid.com

Madrid is also the first urban destination in Spain with a Tourist Centre that has a Universal Accessibility certificate from the Spanish Association for Standardisation and Certification (AENOR). This accessibility system, put in place by the Casa de la Panadería Tourist Centre (Plaza Mayor, 27) in 2010 and renewed annually, encompasses the physical accessibility to the centre and also the services provided to the traveller.