TravelAbility Insider

The Intersection of Travel and Disability

Accessibility

TravelAbility Welcomes Eight New Advisory Board Members

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As evident from this jam-packed newsletter, TravelAbility is growing. In addition to launching new partnerships and initiatives, we are broadening and deepening our leadership by expanding our advisory board with a stellar group of executives, advocates, and industry insiders:

Suzanne Edwards, Head of Accessibility Standards, Airbnb. She is a wheelchair user and a surfer/para-athlete who will help Airbnb prepare for hosting Paralympians in 2024. Read more about Suzanne.

Curt Cottle, Senior Policy Advisor, National Tour and Travel Office (NTTO) . He represents the travel industry’s voice within the U.S. Department of Commerce. Read more about Curt.

Lesly Simmons,  Head of Community Innovation, Amazon. She is a pioneer in the event industry who created and curated impactful experiences for Amazon’s events division. Read more about Lesly.

Chris Collinson, Entrepreneur and Investor. He founded Connect and grew it into a strong leader in the meetings and events industry over 20 years, before retiring.  Read more about Chris.

Sophia Hyder Hoch, Chief Diversity Officer, Destinations International. She is our main contact as we work with DI to make accessibility available to all their 700+ destinations. Read more about Sophia.

Jason Holic, Sr. VP, Operations and Community Involvement/former politician, Experience Kissimmee. He has shown his ability to provide TravelAbility with insights on how to use data and creativity to motivate partners to adopt accessibility. Read more about Jason.

Alexander Hauerslev Jensen, Accessible Partnerships, Google, who helps create pathways to Google products that enhance the experiences of users with disabilities. Read more about Alexander

Rebcca Stair Gill,  VP Business Development, TravelAbility and publisher of Accessible Journeys.  She is a skilled marketer and builder of strategic, branded, social content partnerships. Read more about Rebecca.

View the full advisory board here.

What Does an Adaptive Bike Fest Look Like?

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A woman on a golf course strapped into an electric bike/wheelchair at a bike fest testing event

Sponsors Alpine Electric Bikes and Capital Bike teamed up with RAD to put on the free Adaptive Bike Fest in September, which featured everything from hand cycles to guided bike rides to bike and wheelchair tune-ups.

Organizers said the event was aimed at showing how accessible getting outside and having fun can be, even for those with limited mobility, and providing an opportunity to try out the often hard-to-find accessible equipment without cost. Read more.

TravelAbility Takeaway: Great idea for an event that celebrates new mobile options and emphasizes the fun side of being outdoors on a set of wheels.

Actors With Intellectual Disabilities Steal the Show in “Champions”

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Five actors with disabilities, including Down Syndrome, wearing basketball uniforms huddle in a scene from the film "Champions"

Never mind Woody Harrelson. The real standouts of the movie Champions, directed by Bobby Farrelly and adapted from a Spanish film by Mark Rizzo, are the actors who portray the Friends basketball team.

“As a writer, you hope that the actors like the material and that they elevate it in some way,” Rizzo said in a recent interview. “In this film, each and every member of the cast did exactly that. I was blown away by how the funny scenes were just funnier with them in them. They made brilliant choices that I could not have imagined.”

Woody Harrelson plays a tough minor-league coach whose dream of working in the NBA is derailed when he is court-mandated to work with a team of players with intellectual disabilities, the Friends.

Rizzo said his goal was to allow plenty of room for the young actors to make the creative choices necessary for bringing their characters to life.

“For me, it was making sure that the disabled people in the movie carried as much story and as much agency as the non-disabled people. That was really my sole focus. I wanted to give them as many choices and emotional arcs as any other character would have.” Read more.

TravelAbility Takeaway: Who doesn’t love a good underdog sports movie? Harrelson is convincing in the Tom Hanks “there’s-no-crying-in baseball-role”, but the movie is stolen by the team of actors with intellectual disabilities. They are at once funny and believable. Note: Both the original Spanish film and the American remake draw inspiration from the true story of the Aderes basketball team, a Valencia-based team of players with intellectual disabilities who who win multiple championships in Spain.

Tips on Accessible Solo Travel by Chelsea Bear, a TravelAbility Board Member

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Woman wearing sunglasses and smiling as she stands in front of a body of water

Research. Planning. More research. Repeat.

That’s the message threaded through Chelsea Bear’s Trip Advisor article on solo travel for people with disabilities: You can’t be overprepared.

Chelsea confesses that as a person with cerebral palsy who uses an electric scooter, she used to think that solo travel was not an option for her.  Now, she writes, “at age 30, I can happily say that my younger self’s beliefs and fears were completely wrong—I’ve traveled to 10 countries outside of the United States and dozens of states domestically.” In addition to tapping her own experience, Chelsea shares tips from leading travel influencers including Corey Lee, Sylvia Longmire, and Houston Vandergriff. Tips range from zip ties to extra batteries to mapping every conceivable destination and resource ahead of time. Read more.

UK Blue Badge Access Awards Recognize Hospitality Leaders in Accessible Design

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Seven people, one in a wheelchair, smiling and holding up award statues

TravelAbility recently attended the BLUE BADGE ACCESS AWARDS 2023  held at London’s Great Scotland Yard Hotel. We also attended a West End performance of Little Big Things, an incredibly rousing, accessibility-themed musical. The Blue Badge Access Awards want to raise the profile of accessibility in the industry and to honor the venues that are excelling at—and proud of—their accessibility.

The 11 Awards—for everything from best and worst bathrooms (loos), to hotels, spas and bars—were presented to venues and individuals that have provided exceptional accessibility, style, and design in the hospitality business and beyond…as well as those who haven’t! Read more.

TravelAbility Takeaway: This was not only a wonderful ceremony celebrating the best of Britain’s accessibility with a cheeky nod to the not-so-great, but also a blueprint for any destination to create their own award luncheon to showcase and honor their industry partners that provide stand-out accessibility and perhaps even generate FOMO.  After listening to various speakers discussing their frustrations with the inconsistent and catch-as-catch-can accessibility, it made us appreciate the ADA which, inadequate as it may be, provides a baseline of physical accessibility that is generally available.  In the UK, which has had the Disability Equality Act since 2010, there is no enforcement and many buildings—including hotels—are centuries old and grandfathered out.  

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