TravelAbility Insider

The Intersection of Travel and Disability

Denise Brodey

Introducing Our Easy-to-Navigate Index Organized by Topics You Care About

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There are more than 140 articles organized by category on the right hand side of our home page.

Check out the categories on the right-hand side of our home page at TravelAbility Insider.  (Note: If you are using a mobile phone the categories of the index will appear as you scroll down, starting Accessibility.

There you will find the ‘A to V ‘ of recent stories by category, from Autism and Airports to Trends and Vision. Our mission is to connect you with both the disability community and travel experts and advisors. Sharing knowledge like this creates a unique ecosystem where accessibility travel can thrive.

OUR TAKE: There’s a lot of blogs and newsletters out there about travel and accessibility—but many can be complicated, or worse—outdated. Thanks to our expert Advisory Board and staff, we’ve sourced the most trustworthy, relevant information for you. The search to understand the next big trend in travel is over—or maybe it’s just beginning! Either way, we’re here to help.

Travelability Insider’s Exclusive Interviews with Disability Experts

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exlusive interviews photos of Nate and John Sage

OUR TAKE: When we rolled out TravelAbilityInsider, the companion to our upcoming Summit in November, we did a deep dive into what we didn’t know and found outstanding experts to help. Many have joined our diverse advisory board and made commitments to be at the TravelAbility Summit. Their subject expertise ranges from making a website accessible to creating an itinerary for all abilities. Find exclusive interviews here and get ready for more learning and fun on November 12-13 in San Francisco.

REGISTER HERE

TravelAbility Update: What We’ve Learned So Far

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special update

by Tom Berrigan, Managing Editor, InBound Report

Jake Steinman, editor-in-chief of INBOUND, as well as the founder of a portfolio of the popular tour and travel industry events and conferences acquired earlier this year by Connect Travel, has been concentrating on a new project—the first TravelAbility Summit, a highly focused conference dealing with the issue of accessible travel. He launched the effort a year ago, and the first Summit will be staged Nov. 12-13 in San Francisco. Steinman recently participated in a panel discussion on the subject of accessible travel at the U.S. Travel Association’s recent annual ESTO conference in Austin, which brings together DMO leaders from all kinds of destination organizations. INBOUND talked with Steinman about his ESTO experience and how the TravelAbility Summit is shaping up. Here are excerpts of our recent conversation. 

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Engineer Invents Gloves That Turn Sign Language into Audible Speech

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The engineer and designer wears the glove he made. He is sitting next to a co-worker. He is dressed casually and smiling.
The engineer who designed the glove says he was inspired to find an easy way to communicate with his niece.

Roy Allela, a 25-year old engineer and inventor from Kenya, has found the ultimate solution to bridging the communication barrier between deaf and hearing people. He has invented the Sign-IO gloves that can translate signed hand movements to audible speech so deaf people can “talk” even to those who don’t understand sign language, according to a post in the blackbusiness.com blog.

OUR TAKE:  Behind almost every great innovation is someone who is touched by disability—a father, an aunt, or in this case an engineering uncle. Allela was inspired to create the gloves because he and his family struggled to communicate with his 6-year-old niece who was born deaf. The unassuming young inventor who works for Intel estimates the glove expected to generate revenue of around $30 billion by end of 2024,” according to Global NewsWire. For us, it’s a good reminder to set the bar higher and higher every day.

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Delta Promoted Accessibility on Social Media—Here’s What Happened Next

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An (unrelated) ad for Delta highlights that they will be adding more crew members in 2020.

Delta Airlines released a promotional video on social media showing how it “makes the world smaller” for everyone, including children with disabilities. The disability community, however, swiftly called out how Delta and other airlines often make travel harder for people with disabilities, especially wheelchair users, an issue Delta said it is working to resolve. The response from the disability community was 180-degrees from what the company expected. They jumped in the comments section on the video and told their stories—of seeing their wheelchair treated like a sack of potatoes, traveling with a repair kit and being asked to crawl up a flight of stairs to the plane and other difficulties with airline staff. Read the full story here on Yahoo, here.

OUR TAKE: No good deed goes unpunished, even by the disability community.  It’s certainly understandable why disabled travelers who’ve experienced first hand a ruined vacation due to wheelchair damage would jump at the chance to vent at Delta, but it doesn’t seem to be productive in the long run.  Delta’s ad shows that they are trying to find accessible solutions that involve both design and awareness training among their hundreds of airport sub-contractors to improve conditions.  Having to endure this torrent of excoriation may have an unintended effect: Brand risk. If the airlines do nothing, they risk nothing. It is with mixed emotion that we write this. It’s unclear whether marketing folks at Delta ran the ad by a focus group of disabled airplane travelers. If they had, they might have been able to hear their stories and work a note about their long-term approach to change into the messaging.  To learn about some of the positive internal changes Delta has made in hiring and supporting people with disabilities, click here.  “When we had our CEO transition, we really birthed an increased focus on diversity and inclusion,” said Keyra Johnson, Delta’s chief officer of diversity and inclusion (on their site). “We don’t think diversity just happens. We actually believe that you have to work for it and go after it.”