The Intersection of Travel and Disability
The city of Lansing can now be explored virtually thanks to Able Eyes, an organization that creates videos which lets people ‘walk’ through public spaces in 3D. Many of the city’s public areas, attractions and businesses are available on the platform. This is beneficial to people with disabilities as they can browse through an area, familiarize themselves with it virtually, and plan their visit in advance. Read more.
From our Man-Bites-Dog Department: A 56-year-old Dutch man was accused of violently attacking and robbing a German tourist in the Spanish city of Palma, on the island of Mallorca. According to reports, the victim was walking with another person near the Plaza del Oliver, when the assailant allegedly used his wheelchair to quietly stalk the victim. Appearing out of nowhere, he then allegedly punched the 62-year-old man in the face and stole his wallet. The suspect then fled the city center square in his wheelchair.
Witnesses reported seeing a confusing set of events unfold as the person in the wheelchair raced across the cobblestones with the German tourists giving chase. National Police already in the area on another assignment, also chased after the man in the wheelchair. He was soon captured and arrested on allegations of aggravated robbery.
The victim was taken to an area hospital for assessment. Read more.
It’s been over three years since we started TravelAbility, and in that time, I’ve learned a great deal from the DMO’s that have embraced accessibility to become more inclusive and welcoming to everyone. It inspired our tagline: “All Means All” and resulted in many unintended consequences that surprised destination leaders.
Here’s a summary of what we found: https://destinationsinternational.org/unintended-consequences-becoming-accessible-destination
Sylvia Longmire is no stranger to hotel stays. Since she began traveling as a full-time wheelchair user in 2015, she has stayed in hundreds of hotels across dozens of countries and states. The biggest issues for accessible travelers, however, can be found when traveling domestically.
As anyone searching for accessible hotel rooms knows, the biggest problem when it comes to consistency is that at least 90 percent of hotels are franchises. This means that though branding stays the same, each location could look nothing alike and have varying levels of accessibility.
Enter Home2 Suites. The Home2 Suites chain is a Hilton brand that launched in 2011, one of Hilton’s first new brands in 20 years. Today, it has approximately 400 properties across the U.S. While most of them are franchised, the interior design elements are extremely standardized with minimal deviation and layout differences. An incredible bonus for wheelchair-accessible travelers. Read on as Sylvia gives the good, and the bad, for booking your next stay at a Home2 Suite hotel.
As accessible tourism continues to grow, one social enterprise is running ground-breaking multisensory trips around Australia.
James ‘Buck’ McFarlane, founded Cocky Guides, a company dedicated to providing multi-sensory group tours for those who are blind or have low vision, following many years of working as a tour guide. Through the years he was often surprised to have never encountered blind or low-vision travelers on his trips. Finding a lack of tour operators catering specifically to blind and low-vision travelers, McFarlane found a new purpose and four years later, Cocky Guides was born.
Travelers with Cocky Guides can still experience the big tourist attraction, just in a different way. Tours are simply sensory in other ways, focusing on touch or smell to give travelers a sense of where they are. Trips are always about the client’s experience. As McFarlane says, “If we need to stay in a treehouse in the Daintree because that makes the experience better… we’ll go for the treehouse.”
Click here to learn more about Cocky Guides and their numerous destinations.
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