When it comes to accessibility, our travel and tourism industry have a lot of work to do around their contribution towards participating in, and enjoying the benefits of a disability-confident economy.
It is estimated that travellers with disabilities represent an over $60 billion industry which is largely untapped. In an industry so easily hard hit by socioeconomic and environmental variables beyond their control, I am hard-pressed to understand why it would ignore such a fantastic opportunity for market growth. Based on my experiences as a wheelchair user who travels… here are a few points to ponder that might help those within the sector rethink their approach towards offering accessible travel and tourism services:
Let’s start with a personal story to illustrate…
I recently planned and coordinated a destination wedding where over 50 of my husband and my nearest and dearest came from all over the world to celebrate with us in Greece. Doing my due diligence on accessibility when choosing my wedding destination, I selected the town, wedding venue, guest accommodation, social activities and restaurants with one key requirement as a starting point for all enquiries – wheelchair accessibility.
We eventually settled on a town called Parga because it had all the factors we were looking for from a wheelchair accessibility and family experience perspective. It had an accessible promenade which allowed me to socialise around the entire bay, accessible restaurants all along the promenade, the choice of a few accessible accommodation venues (or so they were advertised) and a wedding coordinator who couldn’t have been more accommodating in terms of making the necessary adjustments for my accessibility needs, despite a few accessibility barriers in the way (shout out the Joanna from Villa Rossa). Whilst there definitely needs to be more done pertaining to the accessibility of some of the accommodations we booked, which claimed to be accessible but were, in fact, not, the willingness to learn and improve on accessible service was a great starting point.
The point I hope to make here involves the positive consequence of having accessibility in mind when planning for accessible tourism. In the case that I just illustrated, not only did Parga directly benefit from the spend of 50 tourists who descended upon the town for our wedding, but each of those has been singing the praises of the town all over Facebook and Instagram, and I have not stopped doing the same in the presentations, training sessions and keynote address events which I speak all over the world. For business in Parga, this is good for branding, this is good for business, and this is good for people you may have a disability themselves, be it temporary or long term, or who may be travelling with someone with a disability. With over 15% of the world’s population having a disability, this is not an unlikely event.
Now, what happens when the infrastructure lets you down? My experience as a tourist in Athens, the capital city of Greece, was not so positive. When it comes to accessibility within a city, there is really no excuse for an inaccessible infrastructure, particularly when so much of your economy relies on tourism itself.
Several of the key tourist attractions that advertised themselves as accessible, were in fact, not accessible as a result of the unapologetic lack of reliability of elevators and other accessibility features, as well as a notable lack of consideration of the need for these to be standardised as common practice. Almost all of the stores in key tourism areas had the unusual combination of a ramp leading to a step, or a step leading to a ramp, or no ramp at all, despite this being easily achieved with minor modifications. Walkways and curbs, which had large yellow signs indicating accessible routes again sported the completely illogical common practice of a step joining the ramp to the road.
Aside from the CityBus Hop-on-Hop-off buses, which offered an accessible solution, trying to find any accessible transport was nearly impossible. On Booking.com, all of the hotel rooms which advertised themselves to be wheelchair accessible were, in fact, not wheelchair accessible at all. For the record, having an elevator that a wheelchair cannot fit inside is not a good solution. Having a large bathroom that you cannot access through an unusually narrow doorway is not a good solution. Having a step getting up to the shower, is not an accessible solution – even though it is “only one step” (and I quote the hotel manager as he looked at me with exasperation when I illustrated the problem at hand).
So here are a few tips to the tourism industry that I think are particularly important to consider if you would like to tap into this $60 billion strong economic advantage:
Understand your potential market better – check your unconscious bias
- Recognise that people with disabilities also want to see the world, also need to travel for business, and expect the same level of customer service as anyone else who is paying money for this service. Our money is the same as everyone else’s!
- Asking for accessibility in the service or accommodation being ‘purchased’ is not asking for a favour or special treatment, it is asking for a good customer experience. You don’t have to be a hospital to cater for the needs of people with disabilities, you just need to think about barriers that could be avoided through intentional planning and a wider range of services. A game changer for me, for example, would be a service whereby I could hire an assistant to help me with basic functions such as transferring in and out of bed, accompanying me to various meetings in case I need assistance with opening doors or carrying me briefcase etc. If a hotel was to offer this service which they outsourced to a local service provider, I would be screaming their names from the rooftops and marketing the hell out of them as an incredibly innovative solution that supported my need as an independent businesswoman who happens to use a wheelchair.
You don’t have to be an expert on every disability,
- You just have to realise that your customers are likely to be making an informed choice based on the information you are presenting. So ask questions about accessibility, what are the universal standards, what do your customers want etc, so that you get real insights rather than assumed misinformation.
- Marketing your accessibility is a competitive edge (for example Booking.com have a filter where you can select wheelchair accessible facilities to shortlist options), but then make sure that what you say you have is, in fact, the truth. If you are unsure, then refer to the advice in the previous point. At the moment I’m not impressed with Booking.com – they really need to up their game in this regard as it is becoming glaringly obvious that they have slipped when authenticating the claims of the venues who claim to be wheelchair accessible. More often than not reality is not what is I advertised. #Do better Booking.com.
Use technology to enable customer access and selection:
- Consider accessibility from start to finish of the customer experience. Is your website accessible to the diverse needs of people with disabilities? If you’re not sure, ask a service provider to check and encourage feedback from suppliers and guests with disabilities who can let you know.
- An incredibly life-changing enabler which I have found to be so helpful is a simple recorded video of a real-life “walkthrough” of your facilities or services. A hotel I recently booked in Zanzibar had a YouTube ‘walk through’ of their entire facility showing the walkway, distance to the sea, bathroom door width, etc, which allowed me to determine whether my wheelchair and I would navigate comfortably around the facilities. Including a combination of text, audible and visual information covers a wider range of needs and helps potential customers determine whether you are the right venue or service for them.
Use a personal approach to impress:
- What really impresses me as a customer is hen the company with whom I have booked calls me directly to ask if there is anything specific, they can do that would make my stay or my experience more accessible. That conversation alone gives me confidence that I’ve chosen the right place. I don’t expect every venue to be completely accessible to my specific needs, as I am the experts in my own requirements, but the fact that they made the effort to check beforehand to ensure my comfort and positive experience is just outstanding customer service. It also provides them with the opportunity to learn and to adapt as they go, further enhancing the customer experience.
- Personally, if I do get to a venue and there is a problem with accessibility, and someone from that venue makes an effort to come and speak to me and solve the problem with me, even if the solution is not ideal, I am immediately impressed. I remember going to Mauritius, many years ago, for five days to Club Med which openly claimed to be accessible. Upon arrival, I discovered that the door width into every toilet in the resort was too narrow for a standard wheelchair to access. Given that I was going to be there for a few days, this was a great concern. The hotel manager offered the assistance of one of the volunteering employees to take me to the venue next door where they had arranged for me to use their ablutions for that night. The next day they brought in a team of carpenters who, under my instruction, made a makeshift bench which I could use to access the toilets for the duration of my stay. They further asked me to contribute towards the adaptions that would be necessary for future guests and embarked on a more permanent solution to make the relevant infrastructural changes. 10/10 for a positive response. And guess what, 20 years later I am still singing the praises of my experience at club made Mauritius. Good branding is it not?
Become an ally of change.
- The second leg of my trip to Corfu involved the positive experience with an incredible lady called Katerina Lavranou (corfuperfect.com) who completely blew me away with her customer service excellence. Initially I approached her company to provide me with a larger vehicle that we could use to get from the ferry to the hotel. Although they did not advertise as a wheelchair accessible service, when she realised that I was a wheelchair user she immediately WhatsApp’d me to ask about my preference of which vehicle would be easier. She provided me with a larger vehicle, an incredibly helpful driver, and offered to assist me in booking tourist activities (such as a boat trip) recognising the accessibility barriers that I may face. Impressed by her service, I used their service exclusively and was thrilled with her network of contacts whom she liaised with to help us achieve a full tourist experience in a place which does not do a particularly good job of accessible travel. I’d like to extend a huge shout out to Katarina for showing how accessible tourism can be done – even if you are not yet an expert on how to do this, but willing to find solutions together.
I think the important take away in my message here is that, yes, we should be intentionally and strategically building our travel and tourism industry to become more disability confident – it’s good for all the stakeholders within the full supply chain of this industry. But also, don’t be afraid of tapping into this incredibly fruitful market because of a stereotype-based belief that disability inclusion requires medical or specialist skills. It really just requires the same skills that any service provider would need to cater for a targeted market:
- Understand your market – engaging with people who represent this market to gain insights into common barriers and how to remove these,
- Listen to your market – providing feedback structures through which people can share their experiences, which could be used as learning opportunities towards adapting as you go
- Test the market – inviting people with lived experience of disabilities to test drive the accessibility features, whether they be travel agents with disabilities, customers, suppliers or staff with lived experience of disability, and specialists in universal design
- Quality assure your approach – for those platforms, such as Booking.com who offer accessibility filters as part of the service do better in terms of verifying the information provided by your service providers.
Accessible tourism is a rapidly growing market which is expected to increase throughout the world in response to changes in society and increasing opportunities for access. The reality is that in this world where diversity is not only to be respected but celebrated, where access to education and employment of persons with disabilities results in greater participation in the economy, and in which products and services are judged by the social equity of their brand and competition for untapped markets, accessibility and inclusion has the power to become a competitive edge to your business.