Accessibility expert

President/CEO, Visit Fort Wayne

Note: This interview is part of an ongoing series featuring interviews with 24 Champions of Accessibility for 2024 selected and celebrated by TravelAbility.

Q1. When did you begin focusing on accessibility in your destination and what was the impetus for wanting to make your destination more accessible?

Our destination has always been focused on accessibility. Both the city and the county have dedicated departments and employees and there are several nonprofits addressing various accessible missions. One such organization, Turnstone Center for Children and Adults with Disabilities, has been in our community for 80 years. They are a free-standing not-for-profit providing a comprehensive continuum of supportive services serving the unique needs of people with varying disabilities and their families. Turnstone is one of eleven official Paralympic training sites in the U.S. The men’s and women’s goal ball teams live and train on Turnstone’s campus. One program offered is adaptive sports for varying ages. Visit Fort Wayne collaborates with Turnstone to bring in, and serve, adaptive sporting events.

Our destination has a head start over others regarding where we stand as a supportive, service-oriented community for local and regional residents, and visitors, who have varying abilities.

Q2. What are your main responsibilities and tasks in your organization?

In my administrative role as President/CEO, I work with a team of experts to market and sell the City of Fort Wayne (Indiana’s second largest city) and Allen County as an exceptional destination to visit. In 2022, 8.8 million leisure and group visitors spent $995 million in our communities. We also use industry expertise and leadership, with community collaboration, to develop quality of place for residents and visitors, so Fort Wayne/Allen County can benefit from a vibrant and growing tourism economy. 

Q3. Aside from budget, what are the most difficult obstacles or barriers that you face regarding the advancement of accessibility in your destination? What initiatives have you undertaken to improve accessibility in your destination, and which are you most proud of?

Last January, we embarked on the process of building our destination’s first tourism master plan. Through the listening and surveying process, residents and visitors provided the loudest voices on the plan’s focus for destination development to grow the local visitor economy. The resounding results of the data received caused the consultants to build into the 10-year plan, a foundational vision, mandate if you will, that building an accessible destination is priority in all 20 initiatives outlined in the final plan. Over 2,200 residents, over 600 visitors, and hundreds of stakeholders participated in naming and ranking initiatives. An accessible destination came out loud and clear as the overarching foundation of the 10-year plan. The opportunity challenge now is putting our plan into action. Out of the 20 initiatives listed in the plan, Visit Fort Wayne is assigned to lead eight, with Accessible Destination as one of them.

Q4. Who do you follow? Name an organization/company/individual you look to for ideas or inspiration. 

John Morris, founder of WheelchairTravel.org. He will be our keynote speaker at our May inaugural Power of Tourism and Hospitality Awards Luncheon. I also follow Wheel the World, Destinations International, and various disability travel focused groups on Facebook. In addition, we rely on our own destination’s disability experts and non-profit organizations as resources.

Q5. What are your plans around accessibility in 2024?

Visit Fort Wayne is forming a task force that will assist us with the accessible destination initiative outlined in the 10-year tourism master plan. This group will advise and support the official launch of this overarching foundation of the plan. Fundraising for a destination accessibility assessment will be a priority. Our goal is to launch the assessment process in late 2024 or early 2025.