- Travelers with mobility disabilities spend $58.2 billion on travel annually.
- Some hospitality businesses are becoming more inclusive with accessible tech for disabled travelers.
- Digital and physical tech has helped improve accessible travel experiences, but more can be done.
- This article is part of “Build IT,” a series about digital tech and innovation trends that are disrupting industries.
On December 31, 2017, when I was a 25-year-old athlete and actor, I was admitted to my local hospital because I couldn’t feel anything below my chest. In the coming months, I was diagnosed with neuromyelitis optica, an autoimmune disease of the central nervous system, similar to multiple sclerosis.
That year, I relearned how to do everything from walking to driving and reacclimated my mind to a world that didn’t know or care that my body would move and function differently forever. As a Black woman, my lived experience was already intersectional, but my NMO diagnosis added another layer.
This particularly affected my relationship with traveling. It took years for me to feel comfortable with taking trips again, and when I finally did, I needed to keep accessibility top of mind. I quickly realized places that offered amenities such as ramps and elevators were helpful, but that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
To achieve true accessibility, hospitality establishments must use both digital and physical technologies to be more inclusive.
Accessibility-focused databases help disabled travelers plan their trips
Isabelle Ducharme is the president of the board of directors at Kéroul, an organization dedicated to making Quebec an accessible destination for all travelers.
“I was an aircraft mechanic for the army here, and I had a car accident on the eve of my 22nd birthday, and now I get around in a motorized wheelchair,” Ducharme told me. “One of the things that helped me through rehab was knowing that I could still travel and do my activities. I was still in rehab when I went to my first Rod Stewart concert and when I did my first trip to Mexico.”
Over the past 25 years, the Ministry of Tourism for Quebec has relied on Kéroul to help with the province’s accessibility-related needs and innovations. Kéroul has been so successful that the Minister of Tourism endowed the organization with $5 million in 2017 to distribute over the course of five years to help organizations in Quebec without the funding become more accessible.
Ducharme and her Kéroul teammates hope that when the financial responsibility of funding-accessible services is lightened, more business owners will be open to creating and updating spaces with inclusivity at the forefront.
Kéroul also evaluates buildings and venues in the tourism industry to accredit accessible certification in Quebec, which means that these locations are fully accessible to people of all ability ranges and can be advertised as such. Its certifications are the only ones recognized by the Quebec Ministry of Tourism.
Kéroul executes these evaluations by sending an expert to assess a certain spot and ensure accessible criteria are met. They then give the space an accessible rating level — full access, partial access, or not accessible — and provide a breakdown of how noncompliant areas can improve.
If a space gains certification, it’s added to the Bonjour Quebec website, the official website for the tourism board of Quebec, and included in Quebec for All, a platform with a searchable database of over 1,800 accessible tourist establishments. This digital resource is a huge help for those who need to keep accessibility in mind while planning a trip.
Quebec for All also has an interactive digital map that allows travelers to see the accessible offerings at a location, discover what other fully or partially accessible locations are nearby, prepare for places that don’t have the amenities they need, and more.
Accessible tech at accommodation facilities is creating truly all-inclusive stays
Picking a destination and getting there are just part of the journey for many disabled travelers. While a number of hotels, inns, and lodgings have standard accessible rooms, it’s a pleasant surprise when there are special amenities that make an all-inclusive stay memorable for everyone.
For example, resorts such as Mayakoba in Playa Del Carmen, Mexico, are using coded wristbands instead of thin plastic key cards for visitors to enter their rooms and access other parts of the resort. The wristbands are helpful for people who have difficulty holding and maneuvering smaller items such as standard key cards.
Ocean Casino Resort in Atlantic City, New Jersey, is also addressing accessibility needs with technology. It has over 60 rooms integrated with accessible amenities: Some are reserved for clients with hearing and visual impairments and equipped with a Room Valet visual alerting system and a bed that shakes when the doorbell is pushed.
These rooms come in all sizes and suite styles, from a studio to a presidential suite, so that people who need accessible rooms aren’t limited by affordability. This location also has Americans with Disabilities Act-compliant beach wheelchairs and wheelchair access to the beach, which are in high demand at the waterfront destination.
Popular tourist destinations are incorporating more accessible tech
Tourist hot spots and cool local spots are slowly but surely embracing more accessible technology. The Lincoln Center in New York City is a prime example.
The Lincoln Center offers experiences and features such as virtual shows made for people with dementia and their caregivers; text captions, downloaded from a QR code, for shows and performances; and art series featuring fully realized virtual worlds via platforms like Arium, which allows users to create and engage in virtual exhibitions and communities.
Miranda Hoffner, the director of accessibility at the Lincoln Center, said that people who are neurodivergent and sensory-seeking — meaning they search for and engage with sensory input and stimulation — also “have great experiences” using the vibration vests at events including silent discos. “We’re enjoying experimenting with this tool and showing audiences that we can decenter sound,” she added.
Hoffner also regularly scours New York City and the internet to find accessibility innovators across the world who can host or lead accessibility-focused events at their venues.
Improving accessible tech for the future of travel
The hospitality industry has a long way to go when it comes to accessibility.
A study by MMGY Global, a marketing and research agency that specializes in travel and tourism, found that travelers with mobility disabilities spent $58.2 billion on travel annually and were going on leisure trips at nearly the same frequency as those without mobility issues. Since many disabled travelers do not travel alone — typically taking trips with a caregiver, a colleague, or a family member — more accessibility tech within the hospitality industry could help businesses boost their revenue.
Two of the biggest issues with increasing accessible tech in this field are documentation of its benefits and the price of acquiring and integrating the tech. Many hotels and destinations either have trouble notating, or simply do not document, how much revenue they’ve made because of the accessible tech and services they provide.
Take Ocean Casino Resort, for example. Brian Brennan, the establishment’s public-relations manager and a wheelchair user who gave me a tour of the resort, said the business reported more than $47.6 million in gross operating profits in the first half of 2023. This is 40% higher than it was within the same time frame in 2022.
But there’s a catch: Brennan said the increase in revenue “is not solely related to the disabled community” but that he considered it “a testament to the success a property can have when it is committed to being inclusive to guests of all walks of life.”
Still, calculating how often accessible rooms and amenities are booked and requested is a more tangible way to help investors see the financial benefit of contributing to these offerings in travel spaces.
This presents an open field of opportunities for tech innovators to partner with the hospitality industry to create accountability measures for accessible amenities. Once the numbers are there, administrators will have a stronger case to get board members and investors to allocate money for accessibility.
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