TravelAbility Insider

The Intersection of Travel and Disability

TravelAbility Report: March 2019

7 TravelAbility Experts Making Big News This Month

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girl and another woman kiss a dog who is black with a white nose from Pick Of the Litter
This Disney+ film partnered with Guide Dogs For the Blind.
  • Expedia, a longtime partner of North American Journey’s partner, pledged (with 140 other Fortune 500 companies) in Davos to making Diversity & Inclusion a board priority in 2020. 
  • Advisory Board Member Eric Lipp of Open Doors had a high-profile feature in the Washington Post. Read it here.
  • Guide Dogs for the Blind’s Teresa Stern, also a presenter at TAS2019, informed us that Disney+ is airing its new series, Pick of the Litter
  • ReelAbilities, which showed two short films at TAS2019 also appeared at the 2020 Sundance Festival.
  • Kirsten Brecht Baker, CEO of Jeennie, and a presenter at TravelAbility 2019 Launchpad, landed a positive review in Fast Company. AND….
  • Welcome two new Advisory Board members.  Ron Pettit, Director, Disability and Inclusion, Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines, and Dr. Leah Witt, M.D., a gerontologist helping to create age-friendly airports.  See the full Advisory Board here.

Also see “13 Things I Learned at the Winter ADA Summit“, here.

Why Sundance 2020 Deserves A Standing Ovation for Accessibility

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sign that says Sundance Film Festival in white neon lights
Sundance upgrades their accessibility this year.

The Sundance Film Festival is making changes to improve accessibility for attendees with disabilities. The Ruderman Family Foundation on Wednesday announced a partnership with the Sundance Institute to provide more resources for attendees with disabilities and to include a greater amount of programming featuring people with disabilities, including an opening-weekend film, according to Hollywood Reporter.

Our take: Extending accessibility using assisted listening devices, among other resources, is becoming a selling point for attractions hoping to win over the one in five people in this country who have a disability. Successful initiatives happen when CVBs, attractions and local disability organizations work cooperatively to go beyond compliance. If you accessible-ize it, they will come. At Sundance, theaters have CC, AD and ALD devices that can be requested from theater staff at the start of an event and retrieved by them afterward. All theaters are additionally wheelchair-accessible and offer seating for attendees with disabilities and companions

 

Hats Off to Heathrow Airport for New $40M in Accessibility Investment

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an airport looking at arrival departure screens in waiting areas
Heathrow airport is leading the pack in accessibility.

Heathrow was rated “good” in the UK’s Civil Aviation Authority (CAA)’s airport accessibility report last year, and hopes to achieve “very good” by 2022, according to businesstraveller.com They are also working with tech companies to aid blind travelers and have appointed a disability campaigner, among other executives, to ensure accessibility is at the forefront of their agenda.

Our take:  Change starts at the top. The fact that Heathrow has now embedded more than a few disability champions in their workforce says to us that they’re in this for the long haul. Between new technology and greater awareness of the issues, hopefully, these efforts will also translate into changes on the tarmac as well. You can read more here.

Have You Signed & Shared? 50K Say We Must Standardize Hotel Bed Heights

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Why can’t all hotel bed heights be the same? [photo of bed with pillows including an emoticon poop pillow]

The most frequent question about hotel room accessibility asked by blog readers concerns bed height — why are hotel beds so tall? Tall beds may be ‘in’ right now, but they are a major accessibility barrier to wheelchair users, who face difficulty in transferring between uneven surfaces, explains blogger and Advisory Board Member John Morris. 

 Our take: First, the reason why beds are not a uniform height: the ADA does not set a maximum bed height requirement as well as the fact that a large number of semi-ambulatory disabled people need a taller bed. Turn concern into action by signing the Change.org petition Morris found after doing some digging and join 50K other folks who have done the same. To sign the petition on Change.org, click here. 

Is easyTravelseat the Breakthrough Wheelchair Travelers Have Been Waiting For?

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A woman in her wheelchair on the tarmac happy to be traveling with her EasySeat.

Sure, it’s a seat you can use on the airplane, but it’s so much more. Designed by disabled entrepreneur Josh Wintersgill, who was recently named Young Entrepreneur of the Year in the UK,  easyTravelseat, can go with you on outings to the beach, help you to get into a pool with or without the use of a hoist and experience a day touring by car. Boats, hot-air ballooning, and helicoptering aren’t out of the question either.   

Our take: This British entrepreneur is on the cutting edge of a massive movement to make multi-use accessible designs at affordable prices. Of course, safety comes first. This one has gotten the thumbs up from several UK experts and is being praised for how easy it is to use.