TravelAbility Insider

The Intersection of Travel and Disability

Hotels

Why 285 Million People Worldwide Can’t Navigate Your Hotel or Airport

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The very existence of a tool that can map public indoor spaces is a big deal for travelers who are blind or have low vision, especially in cities and towns struggling with budget cuts, according to a recent piece in WIRED. The author interviewed the Louisville, Kentucky CEO who created the mapping tool who said, “It’s really wonderful to hear people say, ‘I can walk through malls or walk through venues without this sense of hopelessness or of missing information’.”  Find out more about Access Explorer here. (Access Explorer is available for Android phones and is available as an iTunes app.) READ MORE 

OUR TAKE: New research shows that national study that shows cases of blindness will double in the United States by 2050—and that doesn’t include the 16 million Americans expected to have difficulty seeing. A researcher at the National Institutes of Health is quoted as saying, “These findings are an important forewarning of the magnitude of vision loss to come.” One great resource for collateral is BrailleWorks.com, which helps to create menus, maps and other materials for the millions who can’t read documents because of visual impairment or blindness; they also do audio.

 

photo courtesy Access Explorer 

How DMO’s and Hotels Can Help Conferences Become More Accessible

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Wheelchair user Sylvia Longmire using a lift to attend a social gathering at a recent TedX conference.Sylvia Longmire, president of Spin the Globe, refers to herself as an accessible travel agent, blogger, disabled veteran and MS’er. She is also one of the most influential—and opinionated—voices reviewing destinations, cruise lines, hotels and attractions from a wheelchair user’s point of view. She doesn’t hold back. In a recent blog piece, she discussed the challenges of attending conferences and conventions.  

Our Take: Please, share this post with Meeting Planners, an integral part of our industry, who can use her suggestions to make their events more inclusive. Longmire’s spot-on advice can help raise awareness and improve accessibility conditions. We’re looking forward to what she writes next.

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As Hotels Become Sitting Ducks for Predatory Lawyers, What Can They Do?

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Close up shot of two people looking at a paper with their laptops open next to themHotels are common targets for lawsuits because of the depth of regulations that govern the industry, according to Hospitality.net. This piece suggests solutions including TravelTripper.com, a new monitoring system made specifically for hotels. They also do website audits regularly. Clients include small hotel groups, as well as at properties flagged by industry-leading brands such as Marriott, Equinox, Westin, Renaissance, Sheraton, and Le Meridien. 

OUR TAKE: While the disability community, long beaten down by a lack of enforcement may be understandably ambivalent and believe that litigation is the only way to force organizations to comply with the law, these click-by lawsuits are harming their image in the long run. More and more media outlets are running investigative reports portraying plaintiff attorneys (one has filed 2000 lawsuits and is under investigation himself for tax fraud) and their clients as greedy scam artists. TravelAbility Summit will hold a panel session that will include hotelier who’s been targeted for both website and physical property lawsuits. They will address what they learned and how they eventually complied.

 

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Tokyo We Have a 2020 Paralympics Problem: All Your Hotels Have Only One Accessible Room

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Paralympic high jump athlete going over the barThe August date for the 2020 Paralympic Games in Tokyo, Japan is nearing—and it’s reportedly looking like a hot mess. One problem, according to organizers and staff, is a lack of accessible hotel rooms. And it gets worse from there. According to The Guardian, British Paralympic officials looking for hotels near their training camp in Yokohama got a cold shoulder and reportedly seemed uninterested in hosting world-renowned athletes. Other hotels have reportedly demanded they be paid to make the rooms accessible for athletes in wheelchairs.

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5 Spots Where Spring Break Really Feels Like a Break

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See that happy traveler—the one waving on a beautiful day out on the Banshee? (below) That photo was taken on an adaptive sailing regatta run out of the San Francisco Bay area. It’s one of the many vacation suggestions from the Abilities Expo experts, who have vetted each one to be sure it offers adventures that are wheelchair friendly or accessible in other ways.

To browse the 5 Spots Where Spring Break Really. Feels LIke Spring break, click here. You can also find many more Abilities Expo Vacation picks—from trails to family centers with medical resources on hand—on the site.

For details on the Bay Area Association of Disabled Sailors (BAADS), click here.

mom waving from a. sailboat on the water named the banshee