Technology
Welcoming change
After working as a mobility instructor for 18 years for Guide Dogs UK, Gavin Neate saw first-hand the challenges visually impaired people face on a daily basis. It gave him an acute understanding of the wider disability sector and, coupled with an increasing interest in new and ground-breaking assistive technologies, it led him to create Neatebox. Founded in 2020 as a scalable and sustainable enterprise that creates solutions to help disabled people, the Edinburgh-based organisation’s app WelcoMe won the Inclusion and Empowerment Award at the UN-backed World Summit Awards (WSA) 2020. Neate tells Hotel Management International about the journey and challenges of developing these much needed products, and how hotels can be more inclusive to guests with disabilities.
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n 2018, knowing who was about to walk through your door and how to interact with them – especially if they were disabled and required your staff member to adjust their communication style – would have been very useful. In 2021, awareness of the need and the ability to address these issues is an imperative if equitable service is to be delivered. Traditionally, disability awareness has been provided as part of an induction or, occasionally and unofficially, through the year during any one of the disability awareness days or weeks. The level of training has differed and the effectiveness of the knowledge, without reinforcement, has sadly dissipated over time. When added to the transient nature of the industry and the staffing challenges faced across the sector, it is easy to understand that there is a real challenge to be addressed. Looking at the journey and arrival from the
Hotel Management International /
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disabled person’s perspective, it is also important to understand that it is not just the delivery of service in the moment, but also the visitor’s understanding that the service will be delivered prior to booking that encourages them to visit at all.
Indeed, with over 70% of disabled people reporting poor customer service and increasingly being more prepared to report it, staff training and awareness has never been more important.
It is worth mentioning as well that our understanding of what disability is has also changed. Over 75% of disabled people are living with a hidden or invisible disability and many of those with an apparently visible condition, such as wheelchair users or guide dog owners, may also be living with another condition which we’re sadly unaware of. In these instances, the visitor is forced to self-declare at the moment of
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