TravelAbility Insider

The Intersection of Travel and Disability

Accessible travel

Innovation of the Month: SignGlasses Brings Sign Language and Captions Into View

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Through SignGlasses smart glasses, a smiling woman is in view with a sign language interpreter appearing in the corner of the lens.

“If I could just put on glasses and everything was there, captions, interpreting, all of it, that would change everything,” says Dr. Ashley Walker, a Deaf pharmacist, educator, and advocate.

Thanks to SignGlasses, that dream is a little closer.

SignGlasses combines smart glasses with live sign language interpreting, captioning, and pre-recorded media, placing communication access directly in the user’s field of vision. Instead of looking down at a phone, tablet, or screen, a Deaf or hard-of-hearing visitor can see interpretation or captions overlaid on the environment around them.

From an Exhibit Tour to a New Approach to Access

Founded in 2017 at Brigham Young University, SignGlasses emerged from the challenges faced by Deaf individuals during an exhibit tour. Since then, feedback from the Deaf community has driven the pursuit to create a smarter solution that enhances communication access for all. 

The result is a system designed around a simple idea: accessibility should be available where the experience is happening, rather than requiring the visitor to interrupt that experience to access it.

That distinction can be particularly important in museums, attractions, theaters, and other environments where guests are constantly looking around, moving between exhibits, or watching a presentation.

How SignGlasses Works

SignGlasses’ patented technology connects smart glasses to its platform of professional interpreters and captioners.

With the glasses, users can receive live ASL interpretation or captions while continuing to look at their surroundings. The glasses are lightweight and portable, can accommodate prescription lenses, and can stream live interpretation. Pre-recorded media can also be stored on the device and synchronized with an experience without requiring Wi-Fi.

The platform supports two-way communication, allowing Deaf users to sign back and forth with an interpreter, who can also voice for the user when needed.

The Problem It Solves

For venues, providing an interpreter isn’t always as simple as having one available when a guest arrives. Traditional arrangements may require advance scheduling, and interpreters aren’t always available on short notice.

SignGlasses offers a simpler option.

A museum, attraction, theater, or visitor experience can provide smart glasses that allow guests to access interpretation or captions as they move through the experience. 

Options for Destinations

Pricing is customized according to an organization’s needs, and SignGlasses does not currently publish a standard price for its smart-glasses packages or services. 

Reach out to SignGlasses for more information or learn more on their website.

Fora’s First Accessible Travel Report Finds Accessibility is Driving Demand

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A report drawing on a survey of 1,359 Fora advisors and a nationally representative survey of 2,592 U.S. consumers turned up staggering results confirming that accessible travel is not niche, travelers are willing to pay more to have accessibility needs met, and that the lack of accessibility information is still the main barrier making or breaking a trip.

More than half of consumers (55%) planning a multigenerational trip in the next three years say someone in their group will need an accessibility accommodation, whether it’s a wheelchair ramp, a walker-friendly itinerary, a gluten-free menu, or an autism-friendly kids’ camp. Of those families, 78% say they’d pay more to make sure those needs are properly met.

“Accessible travel is not niche, travelers are willing to pay more to have accessibility needs met, and that the lack of accessibility information is still the main barrier making or breaking a trip.”

Advisors are already living this shift. Two-thirds (67%) have booked a trip for a client with an accessibility need, and 18% of those say such trips now make up more than a quarter of their business. These aren’t small bookings, either: 44% of advisors say their largest accessible booking in the past year topped $10,000.

“In my own business, I’ve more than doubled my sales this year, driven by multigenerational trips,” says Karen Morales, Accessibility Program Lead at Fora. “This is a growing, important segment, and it requires a personal touch.”

Bar chart titled "Travelers have a wide range of access needs." Limited walking endurance or stamina is highest at 48%, and service animal is lowest at 7%. Source: Fora.

Multigenerational travel groups are driving the demand, but the senior population isn’t the only group requiring accommodations. Out of those needing accommodations, “more than one in three (36%) say a parent or another adult (age 18 to 64) in their group would need an accommodation, and almost one in four (23%) say a child or teenager would.”

The need is high, and the gap is wide. Surveys showed gaping chasms between what’s advertised as accessible and what truly is. Examples included overlooked steps and bathrooms that couldn’t fit a wheelchair.

How will you meet the growing demand and fill the gap to welcome all?

↪ Read the full article
↪ See the survey results

The TravelAbility Summit takes a deep dive into the accessibility gap and how to fill it. Attendees will leave with practical information that can be implemented immediately to initiate real change and meet real needs. Register here.

Your Disability Influencer Campaign is Failing. Here’s Why.

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Three creators laugh and take a selfie together in a park, one of them using a wheelchair.

You did your research. You found an influencer with a massive, engaged audience and they’re willing to work with you in your budget. You mapped your content strategy, showed them the very best of your destination, and waited for the campaign to take off.

Instead, your reach tanked.

Where did you go wrong?

Here are six ways you may be sabotaging your social media campaigns before they even begin.

1. Not doing your research.

If you hire an adventure junkie to highlight museums, the content will fall flat with their adventure-seeking audience. 

Find someone whose content already looks like yours. 

2. Over-editing your influencer’s content.

This is the result of number one: when you reshape content to fit your brand, it’s no longer natural and won’t gain momentum among the creator’s followers. 

If you like what a creator is doing but it’s not your vibe, ask if they’ll sell photos and B-roll for you to create your own content.  

3. Not building a relationship.

When you connect with your creator, you’ll have the opportunity to see where your vision aligns and what will flow most naturally. Also, if they like you, it’s easier for them to create good content. 

Make a point to connect before the trip, to say hello while they’re in town, and to follow up to see how the trip really went. 

4. Paying for content, but not for the time.

It’s alarming how many times I’ve been asked why I charge a daily rate on top of my content fees. Content fees cover the hours editing photos, videos, and articles and engaging with published content. Before that begins, creators spend twelve hour days experiencing and capturing the destination. 

If you like what a creator is doing but it’s not your vibe, ask if they’ll sell photos and B-roll for you to create your own content.  

When I’m on location, I’m also not available to take on other freelance work. For creators doing this as a side job, they may be taking time off from their primary job.

If I run the numbers in my head and realize I’m making $2 an hour, I’m going to feel pressure to get the project done and get back to work that actually pays the bills.

Budget for a fair amount for full work days while on-site, and for time put into content creation after the trip.

5. Promoting something you don’t have.

Every destination has accessible experiences worth marketing. The problem is when you promise accessibility that hasn’t actually been tested.

Your creator is not going to feel comfortable promoting a restaurant when outdoor dining is the only accessible option, a hotel where they can’t use the shower, or a destination with no accessible taxis where they have to roll in the street because there are no curb cuts.

The bad experience for the creator will make them leery of recommending the destination as somewhere welcoming.

Call your partners to confirm essentials and preview routes with accessibility in mind. 

6. Not amplifying your campaign.

When your creator is three days into sharing live stories and her first reel goes live without so much as a like from the DMO page, she starts to wonder if she came the right week.

It’s discouraging to see your disability content seemingly ignored by the very destination that invited you to create it. Meanwhile, the DMO is missing an opportunity to showcase its accessible offerings to both locals and the people who are already interested in visiting.

Like, comment, and share your creator’s work on your own social channels. You’ll reach more people, show your creator you value their work, and get more from the campaign you already paid for.

TravelAbility Ambassador Update with Kristy Durso

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TravelAbility Ambassador Kristy Durso had a full summer with speaking engagements, industry connections, advocacy projects, and a growing list of initiatives designed to make travel more accessible.

Kristy Durso, seated in a wheelchair, poses with a group of eight people and a golden retriever in a ballroom.

Outside Days

At Outside Days in Denver, Kristy was the only wheelchair user represented outside of two disability-focused sessions. Rather than letting that lack of representation define the experience, she used her seat at the table to challenge the industry and their emphasis on intentional communities.

During a session on data and consumer tracking, she asked, “Are you tracking your clients with disabilities? Are you tracking your visitors with disabilities when they come?” The answer was no.

Later, during a conversation about building intentional communities, she raised a bigger question: “The first thing you lose when you have an accident and become disabled, you have an illness that makes you disabled, or you have a child born with disabilities, you lose your community.”

She continued, “As you sit here and you talk about these intentional communities, I have to wonder: Is there a place for me?”

The response was significant. Kristy connected with industry leadership and is now hoping to return next year as a speaker in the conference’s regular programming, rather than only disability-focused sessions.

She also began working with more than a dozen adaptive outdoor recreation programs in Colorado, connecting them with mainstream tourism providers. The goal is to make it easier for families with mixed abilities to discover and book adaptive recreation without navigating a maze of separate reservations and providers.

Travel Nevada Rural Round Up

At the Travel Nevada Rural Round Up, where she returned for a second year, Kristy’s breakout session sparked action. Two grant organizations told her they were changing their criteria to give greater preference to disability-focused businesses. 

One attendee even returned with news that he had received a grant based on an idea Kristy gave him at last year’s conference. Working with a dark-sky site, she had suggested 3D models of constellations so visitors who are blind or have low vision could better understand what they are experiencing. The proposal received automatic approval.

National Lieutenant Governors Association Conference

At the National Lieutenant Governors Association conference, Kristy says she was given “10 minutes to change the way they think, and I think I succeeded.” She later accepted a keynote invitation for the Louisiana Governor’s Conference and has already been invited to participate in the upcoming Florida Governor’s Conference.

Outside Agents

At the Outside Agents conference, where Kristy was a keynote speaker, she organized an informal dinner conversation, where 27 travel advisors showed up to learn more about accessible travel. 

“As you sit here and you talk about these intentional communities, I have to wonder: Is there a place for me?”

Kristy Durso

Building Bridges Across the Travel Industry

Kristy’s advocacy is also producing tangible industry connections. She introduced Ignite Adaptive Sports to Hero Door Opener, which has since been purchased for the facility, and connected Royal Caribbean with Freedom Tracks for potential beach access on a private island.

She presented her airline and hotel SOP protocols to United Airlines for consideration and created both a booklet and web-based version of hotel protocols to help front desk staff quickly understand how to accommodate travelers with disabilities.

At the Schoolhouse Hotel Accessibility Innovation Showcase, Kristy served as MC. 

Kristy led a disABILITYsa webinar and had the opportunity to talk with physical therapy students through Regis University.

She is also pushing the travel insurance industry to address wheelchair and prosthetic coverage. “Airlines are going to continue breaking wheelchairs,” she told insurance representatives. “If we can get big businesses like you guys behind us, pressure on the airlines to do better, rather than it just being individuals, I think we can actually create movement.”

What’s Next

Kristy’s calendar isn’t slowing down. By the time this hits your inbox, she’ll have wrapped up four days of content creation in Fort Lauderdale and the Florida Governor’s Conference. Next up is work in Huntington Beach and Anaheim, the All Wheels Up Conference in Colorado Springs, and Access the Skies by PVA, where she’ll help wheelchair users prepare for air travel.

“I don’t want to appeal to just people with disabilities,” Kristy says. “My goal with anything I do is to bridge the gap and cross over between the two in ways that make people laugh and think.”

Accessibility Champion: Travel Oregon Wins ESTO/s All Ways Welcome Award

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Travel Oregon team celebrating on stage at the U.S. Travel ESTO Awards, with Kevin Wright holding the award.

“Travel Oregon” has slowly become synonymous with “inclusive travel.” This past spring, no one was surprised when Travel Oregon won Travel + Leisure’s Global Vision Award for their efforts in becoming the first Accessibility Verified State. 

So it won’t be a shock that Travel Oregon also took first place in ESTO’s All Ways Welcome Award. The category recognizes a marketing campaign or destination-led initiative that advances inclusivity and accessibility in destination marketing and makes travel more welcoming for underrepresented or historically excluded audiences. 

Kevin Wright, the Vice President of Global Marketing for Travel Oregon has been featured as a TravelAbility Accessibility Champion for the way he’s brought attention to accessibility and transformed the atmosphere across Oregon. His personal journey began with a family soccer game that almost went terribly wrong, before discovering the sensory kit and well trained staff at guest services who saved the day.

Start. You don’t need to have all the answers or a perfect accessibility strategy before you begin.

Kevin Wright, VP of Global Marketing for Travel Oregon

The impact has grown well beyond one leader. DMOs across the state are embracing accessibility with an enthusiasm that is increasingly hard to ignore. 

When asked what advice he’d give destinations who may be inspired and want to follow his lead, Kevin’s answer was simple: “Start. You don’t need to have all the answers or a perfect accessibility strategy before you begin. Start by listening to travelers with disabilities, invite them into the process, find partners who can help you understand where the barriers are, and then take meaningful action. At Travel Oregon, we’ve learned that accessibility isn’t a project with a finish line—it’s an ongoing commitment to making travel more welcoming for everyone. The most important thing is to begin, learn along the way, and keep moving forward.”

Becoming Accessibility Verified is only the visible evidence of a team that’s willing to do whatever it takes to welcome all. 

Now that is surprising. 

Hats off to Travel Oregon on a job well done, an attitude that is contagious, and initiatives that are leading the industry forward.

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