TravelAbility Insider

The Intersection of Travel and Disability

Disability Advocates

Conde Nast Magazine announces, “Beyond Barriers” Monthly Column Celebrating Accessible Travel

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photo of a disabled skier on top of the mountain

Tom D Morgan-Courtesy Sophie Morgan

Our Takeaway: In some ways, the UK media is light years ahead of their American counterparts when it comes to inclusive values.  Will others follow?

I would like to share a photograph. In it, a smiling 18-year-old girl wearing a faded sleeveless vest and ragged jeans leans forwards to counterbalance a backpack. She is embarking on her first intrepid adventure, standing on the precipice of a journey, but also of girlhood. She’s at that giddy time when everything seems to offer the promise of potential opportunity. The world is her oyster, and she knows it. When I look at this picture, nostalgia twists gently in my stomach. Then the feeling tightens with foreboding. In just a few weeks, that girl—her wanderlust tickled from a trip around southern India—will be paralyzed in a car crash. Read More.

Apple’s New Accessibility Innovations Will Blow You Away

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photo of a MacBook anf an i-phone with the Apple logo showing

Our Takeaway: More evidence that disability is having its moment.  The major tech companies are all pioneering accessible new features for an inclusive world.

Apple previewed a handful of new features designed to boost cognitive, vision, hearing, and mobility accessibility, around Global Accessibility Awareness Day. The features are slated to roll out later this year. This comes as Apple gears up for its Worldwide Developers Conference, which kicks off June 5. 

One feature, called Live Speech, is geared toward users who are nonspeaking or who have diverse speech patterns or disabilities. Live Speech lets someone type what they want to say and then have it spoken aloud. The feature can be used for in-person conversations as well as over the phone and on FaceTime. It works on iPhone, iPad and Mac, and uses any built-in device voices like Siri. You could say, “Nice to meet you, I’m . . . ” and introduce yourself, for example, and can also save favorite phrases such as, “Can I please get a black coffee?” Read More.

College Students Rebel Against Inaccessibility with “F*ck The Stairs “campaign.

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photo of sign saying This Entrance Is Not Accessible. Use Ramps, Elevators and Accessible Doors F*ck the Stairs

Our Takeaway: The title says it all. Outrage is contagious as college students nationwide revolt the unfairness of wheelchair-using classmates having to struggle just to attend classes.

This past April, the Student Accessibility and Disability Alliance at the College of William and Mary organized an advocacy campaign titled “F*ck the Stairs.” The campaign challenged able-bodied students to spend two days using accessible means of travel to better understand the experience of mobility impaired individuals, promoting accessibility awareness on campus. 

Last fall, Student Assembly Undersecretary of Disability Initiatives Allison Stovall ’25, Heather Christensen ’23 and Cameron Lynch ’23 co-founded the SADA. The organization received official recognition from the College in March 2023.

“There were three of us that ended up founding it,” Stovall said. “We got together in October last year and we got approved by the university in March. This has been a very short timeframe that we’ve done a lot of this.”

The “F*ck the Stairs” movement advocates for only using wheelchair accessible ramps, elevators, elevations, and bathrooms for traveling around campus.

“F*ck the Stairs is all about showing everybody what it’s like to have to take inaccessible entrances on campus,” SADA Advocacy Chair Grayson Bunting ’26 said. “We’re making able-bodied students take only accessible entrances on campus today and tomorrow.”

Read More.

Are you Blue, Green or Purple? Egypt announces Color-coded Service Cards for PwDs

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The Ministry of Social Solidarity has started issuing coloured integrated services cards for people with disabilities as the government moves to ensure adequate accessibilty to more people with special needs in public life.

Egypt aims to include 2.7 million persons with severe disabilities in its nationwide integrated services card system by the end of 2023.

There are 12 million persons with various disabilities in Egypt out of a population of 104 million, according to the United Nations Development Program. Read more.

Our Takeaway: Egypt’s constitution is quite enlightened when it comes to caring for their disabled population. The color-coded system—blue= severe disability, green moderate disability and purples=mild disability—is admirable on its surface but may cause a wave of people inflating their disability status to maximize their benefits.  

Meet Kathy Martinez: Expedia’s New VP of Disability Inclusion was Obama’s Assistant Secretary of Labor

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Kathy Martinez come from a large family of LatinX heritage. Her parents did not have much of a formal education and their English skills were poor when she was growing up. When Kathy was eight months old, they discovered that she probably would never be able to see. This is Kathy’s story.

Our Takeaway: The advancement of people with disabilities in the travel industry management structure bodes well for the future health of the industry.