“Accessibility for all should be at the centre of tourism policies and business strategies”
a cluster of people similar to yourself you can put in the questions and get a response”.
SPECIAL ASSISTANCE NEEDS TMCs tasked with group travel are also more than aware of the issue. Key Travel, for example, deals with 1,000 group travel bookings a year, half of which are for its NGO clients and the other half for university clients. “If you’re taking, say, a 30-person group to Egypt, it’s likely one of those travellers will have special as- sistance needs,” says group marketing director John O’Sullivan. While there is no specific technology
in particular that aids special assistance bookings, O’Sullivan believes that the quality of TMCs’ data management is key. “Where TMCs can get this right is the robustness of data,” he says. Key Travel has training in place for consultants on accessible travel. “It’s down to people – those booking with us have a travel profile generated,” says O’Sullivan. “It’s about storage of details, marking it on the itinerary. However, sometimes an administrator will book the travel, so you’re once-removed. Technology can help you, but you can’t rely on it.” Yet there is one start-up aiming to
merge both standardisation and reliability. Accomable was co-founded last summer by Srin Madipalli, who has spinal muscular atrophy. It is a global platform that provides specialised information and listings on assisted travel and adapted accommodation for disabled and elderly people. “A couple of years ago I took six months
off work from my law job to go travelling, and it is one of the best things I have ever done,” he says. “I am disabled but was still able to go scuba diving in Bali, wheelchair trekking in California, and even learnt how to fly a plane. But planning a trip with a wheelchair was incredibly difficult at
BUYINGBUSINESSTRAVEL.COM
times – I’d arrive at accommodation that was advertised as accessible only to find it wasn’t, and I’d have to research hire cars that were specially adapted to fit my wheelchair at each new location. “I left my job as a lawyer in London, and
did an MBA at Oxford. I quickly became interested in tech and how transformative it could be. Companies like Airbnb and Uber were not only changing the business landscape but they were transforming the way people travelled, too. Yet time and again accessibility was often overlooked.”
WORKING TOGETHER Accomable raised private funding earlier this year and now wants to start working with TMCs. In the summer it signed deals with Carlson Rezidor and IHG, and now offers more than 600 accessible properties in 60 countries, with plans to grow this to 1,500 properties by the end of the year. Madipalli agrees there is a rise in the use
of social media for disabled travellers, and uses Facebook and Twitter to find property recommendations from users. “Seeking advice from others in a similar position has a lot of value,” he says. “It’s one of the reasons we have our travel club on Facebook. There is also a forum on Accomable for disabled travellers to ask for tips on accessible travel.” The move into hotels is welcomed
by Key Travel’s O’Sullivan, who argues standards are not always the same for hotel chains. “Airlines are generally really good at supporting people with disabilities; hotels less so,” he says. Official standards do exist, and guidelines are produced that promote universal accessibility in tourism. However, new entrants such as Accomable may be able to usher in a new wave of apps that can leverage relationships with major travel and tourism enterprises, making a practical difference to those travellers with special assistance needs.
IN BRIEF
Facebook has rolled out a new app for businesses to help connect employees and put an end to internal emails. Workplace by Facebook is already used by more than 1,000 organisations globally, following a test-period last year. Companies using it include Danone, Starbucks, Booking. com and Oxfam.
Sabre has unveiled its new mobile platform for business travellers. The new Traveller Experience Platform brings together the aspects of travel management into a single mobile app that will manage the whole trip.
South-east Asian ride-hailing company Grab has teamed up with Singapore technology firm Nutonomy to trial self-driving cars. The trial will give Grab users the chance to experience a ride- hailing driverless taxi.
BBT November/December 2016 31
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