TravelAbility Summit

Unlocking Hidden Potential: The Power of Partnering with Local Disability Organizations in the Travel Industry

September 7, 2023 by Debbie Austin

Kristy Durso wearing a red dress adn seated in a wheelchair speaks with Neul LIgon, the Executive Director of the Center for Independent Living Savannah

By Jennifer Allen

Neil Ligon spoke at the 2023 Travelability Summit to share the hidden gem of a resource that the travel industry often overlooks: local disability organizations. Destinations are often wondering what they’re missing, seeking accessibility assessments, and struggling with marketing to the disability community, all while overlooking the free resource of local experts. These organizations, dedicated to supporting individuals with disabilities, offer a wealth of insights and opportunities that can greatly benefit destinations, businesses, and travelers alike. Neil shed some light on the untapped potential these partnerships hold.

Neil Ligon passionately believes that accessibility should not be confined to mere survival; it should extend to recreation, life enrichment, and the holistic well-being of all individuals. Travel, a fundamental aspect of life, should be accessible to everyone. Neil’s own experiences have shown him the transformative power of travel, especially in places like national parks that inspire imagination and offer new challenges and opportunities.

One of the most significant hurdles lies in the perception of people with disabilities as individuals with different needs. Neil emphasizes that all people, regardless of ability, share fundamental needs, desires, and aspirations. It’s a common misconception that people with disabilities require heroes to guide them; what they truly need are opportunities, tools, and the freedom to pursue their dreams without others dictating how they should do so. When we’re trying to market to all travelers, all has got to mean all.

So, where should the travel industry start in harnessing the potential of local disability organizations? Neil’s advice is simple: start with coffee and conversations. He highlights that the onus is on the travel industry to initiate contact. Nonprofit organizations, which are often resource-constrained, hold essential knowledge about barriers, expectations, and limiting factors. Start with looking up your “Independent Living Network,” “Statewide Independent Living Council,” “Centers for Independent Living,” or “Agency on Aging,” then make a phone call. Your office of aging may be the missing link in promoting travel – they work with seniors who have the funds, the time, and the priorities to make travel dreams a reality. Just call the general line and tell them you’d like to have a conversation about accessible travel. “We get excited about this, and we know who is in the best position for the conversation. You always need a champion, and the person on the phone will know who that is.”

The symbiotic nature of this partnership becomes evident when considering the invaluable local perspective these organizations offer. They can provide local guides who can show you insights into barriers, expectations, and the specific needs of their community. They can help with marketing strategies by sharing what’s already working in the disability community. By engaging in dialogue, both sides can unlock a universe of opportunities. and help tailor experiences to meet the unique needs of this demographic. Conversely, you can reignite the imagination that has been lost in the struggle of getting from point a to point b every day.

Neil highlights a systemic issue in the benefits system that restricts many individuals with disabilities from pursuing their travel dreams. The paradox of needing to remain asset-poor to qualify for certain benefits creates barriers to saving for travel. Neil suggests innovative solutions like trips on layaway to make travel more financially accessible. He also reminds us not to overlook the extensions of the disabled traveler – they often travel with family or caregivers. A 50th wedding anniversary trip could involve an extended family, all needing an accessible trip. Engaging in conversations, asking questions, and understanding the challenges can lead to meaningful solutions.

As Neil aptly puts it, disability is a part of the lived experience that impacts us all differently. By demonstrating the possibilities and showing that accessible travel is achievable, a tipping point can be reached. People who experience accessible travel will share their stories, becoming the best advertisement for destinations and businesses that prioritize inclusivity.

Neil was grateful for the opportunity to share at the summit, and emphasized the common thread of connection. The essence of travel is connection—with each other and with the world. Local disability organizations also serve as natural connectors, aligning with the core values of the travel industry. By embracing these partnerships, destinations can enrich their offerings, amplify inclusivity, and create lasting connections that benefit everyone.

Neil’s insights remind us that as the travel industry evolves, so should our perception of accessibility. By embracing local disability organizations as allies, destinations can tap into a world of opportunity that leads to a more inclusive and enriching travel experience for all.

The Problem: Inaccessible destinations and a lack of connection to disabled travelers

Solution: Partnering for Inclusivity:

Recognize Valuable Insights:
- Local disability organizations offer crucial knowledge about barriers and expectations.
Empower Shared Goals:
- Disabled travelers seek enriching experiences, not just survival.
Challenge Misconceptions:
- Disabled travelers desire opportunities, not heroics.
Initiate Productive Conversations:
- Engage nonprofits for mutually beneficial partnerships.
Leverage Local Wisdom:
- Gain insights into community needs and effective marketing strategies.
Break Financial Barriers:
- Innovate solutions like layaway trips for affordability.
Foster Advocates:
- Empowered travelers become promoters of inclusive businesses.
Celebrate Connections:
- Travel thrives on connections; disability organizations amplify this.
Enrich Through Collaboration:
- Embrace partnerships to enhance accessibility and inclusivity.

Introduction to the Summit

September 7, 2023 by Debbie Austin

attendees at the The Emerging Markets Summit pose for a group photo with Founder Jake Steinman

By Jennifer Allen

“Feeling incredibly inspired and uplifted after attending the Travelabilty’s Emerging Markets Summit! The collective spirit and determination of the accessible community here has truly left me in awe… Every speaker, panelist, and attendee has brought their unique perspective and expertise to the table, fostering meaningful conversations and sparking innovative ideas. It’s evident that collaboration and cooperation are key to building a more inclusive travel industry. I’m leaving this conference with a renewed sense of purpose and a deep belief in the power of accessibility. Let’s continue to amplify the voices of those who have been marginalized, challenge the status quo, and create a world where travel knows no bounds.”

This feedback from Lesly Palmer, of Pixie Travel, echoes the sentiments of attendees across travel industries at the 2023 Emerging Markets Summit. The summit included a wealth of information, from grant writing and technology breakthroughs, to accessibility travel research and guides on how to create change.

The incomparable value of the summit comes from combining all of the elements for accessible travel in one place. The innovations; disability travel bloggers, who are really the detectives out to share the real scoop; influencers; those with lived experiences; experts; and attendees all come together for a glorious three days of both education and support. The past five years have served as a foundation of trust, establishing not only TravelAbility, but also a community of like-minded world-changers.

The abundance of knowledge and innovation shared over the weekend couldn’t be covered in a single newsletter, but the following articles are a small sampling of the driving force for change that is the Travelability Summit.

TravelAbility Summit Review: Showcasing the Market Potential of Accessibility, Sustainability, and DEI

September 7, 2023 by Debbie Austin

Oregon set the record for most attendees from one state.

By Dan Tobin

The name TravelAbility may violate a few rules of capitalization and punctuation, but it’s the perfect expression of founder Jake Steinman’s vision for the company: a place where travel and accessibility are inseparable.

The company has broadened its focus by adding a second intersection to its sold-out Emerging Markets Summit in Savannah in August: the joining together of accessibility with sustainability, and DEI. That may sound like a lot to navigate, but Steinman, founder and CEO of the company, and his team bring a light touch to the event. In fact, the Summit is one of the most upbeat conferences I’ve attended.

The key to the success of the event is that it positions accessibility, sustainability, and DEI as emerging markets to tap rather than challenges to overcome. That aspirational idea was made concrete early on day one with InnovatABLE, a Shark Tank-like competition of unique products and services.

The Judges Top 3 Choices:

1-2 Tie: Enchroma: glasses that allow people with color-blindness to see a much wider spectrum of colors.

1-2 Tie:Translate Live: It uses AI organizational intelligence and human interpreters to deliver accurate and reliable translations in 250 languages-including ASL.

3. GRIT Freedom Chair: an all-terrain wheelchair designed for beach, snow, and ice

The People’s Top 3 Choices (from the post-event survey)

PictureLive, which produces multi-sensory guides for destinations
Grit Freedom Chair, an all-terrain wheelchair designed for beach, snow, and ice
Enchroma

Part of what gives the event its special power and welcoming atmosphere is the eclectic mix of presenters and perspectives, including representatives from leading travel organizations like Expedia, TripAdvisor, Airbnb, the National Park Service, and Leave No Trace; consultants/trainers like Greg DeShields of Tourism Diversity Matters; a number of disability travel influencers; and a large collection of leading-edge DMOs.

The DMOs who have put accessibility at the top of their priorities are a close-knit group who share their experiences freely. “It was the most motivating conference I have attended,” one attendee wrote in their post-event survey. “We are like one big family and every one of us is trying to make the world a better place.”

For many attendees, the highlight of the event was the unique perspective and expertise of disabled travelers that gave the Summit its special power, as they combined personal experiences with entrepreneurial insights. Several sessions featured disabled travelers who are building careers as social media influencers. For example, Cory Lee Woodard, who uses a wheelchair, has amassed tens of thousands of followers to his social media. Destinations hire Cory to consult and to post videos and articles about his experience on his blog, Curb Free with Cory Lee. Houston Vandergriff, a photographer, and Downs Syndrome self-advocate, is heading down a similar path with his Downs and Towns blog.

“One of our goals is to help the travel industry change the perception of people with disabilities from that of a compliance headache to an advanced form of guest service,” says Steinman.

In a sign of the maturing of the movement, DMOs reported on various tools they are using to measure results. One particularly innovative approach is a pilot project between Visit Charlottesville, Destinations International, and TripAdvisor. The Tourism for All project is analyzing TripAdvisor comments and user reviews looking for signs of the impact of three years of outreach and visitor education focused on accessibility and DEI.

Research also lies at the heart of Wheel the World, perhaps the most frequently referenced success story at the Summit. Founded by Chilean best friends Alvaro Silberstein and Camilo Navarro, the company has built a massive search engine for accessible travel with fully verified data. The company sends teams out to destinations with tape measures in hand. They’ve assessed hotels in more than 250 destinations using a long list of data points, including width of doorways, height of beds, and amount of turning space in the bathroom.

Wheel the World is also known for its soaring videos of its multi-day trips for disabled travelers including several featuring a beaming Silberstein, who uses a wheelchair, climbing mountains, ziplining, and surfing.

Miles Partneship took conference attendees on a Deep Dive into their most current research on the accessible travel market. The research provides insights into the travel habits of people with disabilities and underlines the power of this travel segment to re-shape the industry in the future.

TravelAbility Emerging Markets Summit Survey Recaps What Matters Most

July 14, 2022 by John Morris

The following summary represents answers to our questionnaire from 53.7% of registered attendees and provides several insights and comments that we would like to share with the TravelAbility community.

Following TravelAbility, how did your experience at the event make you feel about your work?

Much Better: 38.9%
Better: 33.6
About the same: 19.4
Worse: 5.6
None of the above: 2.8

Insight: Nearly three out of four attendees reported that they felt better about their work having attended TravelAbility. In several interviews attendees stated that the reason they felt better about their work was they felt they were able to help people.

Overall, How would you rate your experience at TravelAbility EMS-2022 on 1-5 scale: 4.4

Top 3 Presentations Day 1:

Influencer Marketing and Accessibility: Joey Bell and Chelsea Bear
(tie) My Life as Coda, Mark Jones, Walt Disney World; Wheel The World, Camilo Navarro
Aira, Marty Watts

Insight: Social media marketing through the disability influencer is an appealing path to promoting an organization’s accessibility features and commitment.

Top 3 Presentations Day 2:

John Morris, Shower Shaming: Why 80% of bathrooms are inaccessible for bathing.
Sasha Blair Goldensohn, Making 55 million places accessible on Google Maps
Stuart Butler, CMO, Visit Myrtle Beach. Autism Awareness Month promotion.

Insight: Attendees felt a combination of outrage, empathy and awe after listening to presenters who shared their experiences.

On a 1-10 scale, how likely are you to refer others to the next TravelAbility EMS Summit?

Average for all respondents: 8.92

Insight: This is what is called the Net Promotional Score (the number of “promoters” minus the number “detractors.” A score of 5.0-7.0 is excellent in the travel industry 8.92 is astonishingly high and due primarily to the quality of speakers.

What Were Your Primary Takeaways?

Was able to become familiar with multiple programs/apps that can assist some of the clients I work with in planning their travel and met some wonderful people that are helping to further advance this area. One idea for improvement – can you provide a way in registration to note if we have any mobility considerations for being able to fully enjoy & attend the offsite programs or advise in registration what isn’t handled by EMS? the busses provided to take us to Disney because none that I saw were accessible.
I really enjoyed hearing about the new products/programs that are out to aid destinations in becoming more accessible. I think a lot of DMO’s are doing some great work and seeing these DMO’s use the services provided helps to give other DMO’s insight as to how it would work for their location. I would love to see more sessions that have groups or tables work together. The conference has a smaller attendance so I think finding ways to have the attendees interact on a small workshop would be beneficial! This could be a social media campaign plan creation, website layout discussion, etc. Just more chances to mingle and mix with the other attendees during the conference.
More than just the intersections at which they come together, the OVERLAP and LAYERING that accessibility, DEI and sustainability hold with one another is true incredible. Feeling more inspired and feeling more confident (both in work product and asking questions).
The resources that are available to assist DMO’s. Working on Landing Page now. And have connected Marketing Digital Media with Chelsea Bear. Great summit.
Attending really made me think about my company, what we’re doing, and what we really need to do more of. This was an educational, eye-opening summit that taught me a lot. I think my biggest complaint is that it seemed like there was too much packed into the schedule. I’d prefer to see and hear from less speakers rather than cramming them into two days. Having to keep up with time, intros in between, etc. took away time and took away from the points the speakers were making. It was super useful and a great variety but I believe less is more.
I was very encouraged by the advocates and innovators who attended. I would have loved more time for networking and application to my destination with the experts who were there. I would love more focus on accessibility in outdoor recreation and in rural areas.
A few takeaways: – A large number of travelers identify with some kind of disability. – There is a ton of technology and programs that can be duplicated/used in our destinations – Success in these projects benefits the local community, visitors and destination as a whole. Next year I would love to see less presentations so that we have more time to discuss topics and ideas at our tables. It did feel pretty rushed and I feel like a lot of the presenters weren’t able to go deeper into their topics and kept ‘skimming’ over things to get it done in time. I think it would also be amazing to have a marketplace where we could talk to the companies selling mobi mats, scooters, software, etc.
Hello. It was a wonderful conference. Thank you for putting it together. I took a lot of notes. First thing I will be doing is building out a dedicated landing page/section on our www.VisitFortMyers.com website for accessibility. What we currently have is just a link in our footer that goes directly to John Morris’s website, where he recaps his visit to Fort Myers last summer – which is great information, but by no means exhaustive.
Thanks for the opportunity and I’m so glad I was asked to go to this conference. I feel as inspired and full of energy as I’ve felt in a long time! Getting the opportunity to experience this new area of inspirational growth and opportunity was awesome.
I’m looking forward to sharing so much of the content with the rest of our team and stakeholders. Additionally, super proud of our Oregon colleagues! For newcomers into this space of our industry (like me), one suggestion I have is to create a list of terms and acronyms and make it available online, i.e. – sensory-friendly/seeking, CODA, neuro-diverse.
I really enjoyed hearing about the new products/programs that are out to aid destinations in becoming more accessible. I think a lot of DMO’s are doing some great work and seeing these DMO’s use the services provided helps to give other DMO’s insight as to how it would work for their location. I would love to see more sessions that have groups or tables work together.”
“More than just the intersections at which they come together, the OVERLAP and LAYERING that accessibility, DEI and sustainability hold with one another is true incredible. Feeling more inspired and feeling more confident (both in work product and asking questions).”
“Attending really made me think about my company, what we’re doing, and what we really need to do more of. This was an educational, eye-opening summit that taught me a lot.”
“First thing I will be doing is building out a dedicated landing page/section on our website for accessibility.”
“I feel as inspired and full of energy as I’ve felt in a long time! We spoke briefly this week, but my first introduction to you was around the year 2000 when I started in tourism with the then Salt Lake CVB (now Visit Salt Lake). I then first attended in ETourism Summit in 2004 or 2005 in Chicago (if my memory serves) and then again in San Francisco one or two times after 2010 once I moved to the Oregon tourism world. As such, getting the opportunity to experience this new area of inspirational growth and opportunity was awesome.”

TravelAbility LaunchPad

Judges’ Winners:

Wheel the World
Revolve Air Wheel

People’s Choice (Ranking based on Survey Results)

The Talking Menu, CL Designs
Black Restaurant Weeks
Access Outdoors
Bird
CAN

Memories from TravelAbility 2022: Photo Gallery

June 26, 2022 by John Morris

These images from the TravelAbility Emerging Markets Summit in Orlando, Florida, sourced from attendees’ social media posts, highlight the dynamic connections and learnings that attendees experienced. We’re eager to see how you will make a difference in promoting greater accessibility for disabled people in travel.