What does the role of chair judge for the Travel For Every Body awards mean to you?
It was great honour to be asked to chair this really amazing panel of judges we have. We’ve got experienced travel industry professionals and we’ve got amazing campaigners as well, such as Sophie Morgan, who are going to bring so much to this panel.
What I would say to the travel industry is this is a fantastic opportunity to showcase what you are doing, and how you’re working towards making travel more inclusive to everybody. So this is a really a good opportunity to tell the world what you’re doing.
You have a personal stake in accessible travel. Would you be comfortable talking a bit about your own experiences?
Travel has always been my passion. I’ve always had this urge to explore and meet local people in new destinations. There’s a big world out there and the more I discover, the more I want to explore.
So for me, accessibility, particularly now that I I’m in a wheelchair, is so important. It it really does open up the world for people like me when things are more accessible. And of course that can only benefit businesses too.
You have your own agency that champions accessible travel, so could you talk a bit more about that?
Where do I start? First of all, the Wheelie Good Travel Company isn’t just a travel company that sells holidays. Right from the moment we brought it into existence, championing accessibility has always been at our core.
We don’t just sell, it’s about ensuring that we work with destinations, hotels, and the airline industry and we try and educate them and raise awareness of how important inclusion is.
We all like to take our family and friends on holiday with us, and if it’s not inclusive and accessible then you are actually losing several customers.
For example if there’s a family of three, and one lady is disabled and has a carer, there’s four people who are paying to go on holiday. If it’s not accessible for one it becomes inaccessible for all.
Why do you think these awards are so important and who do you think should be entering?
Everybody should be entering these awards because it’s a great opportunity to showcase what you are able to do. I’m currently writing a book about innovations in accessible travel and the more I research, the more I get excited because there’s so much going on out there.
The whole of the industry is beginning to wake up to the exciting opportunity of accessible travel. A really good example of this is that I get told a lot by people that they would love to go on a beach holiday, but how do they get into the sea?
There is a fantastic invention that has come from the vision of a disabled person called ‘C Track’, a seat which is on tracks that is operated by the disabled person so you get the independence to decide how fast or how slow you want to go into the sea. It allows a disabled person to access the joy of being in the ocean, and that’s being rolled out now all over Greece, and a couple of other countries as well.
A little seed of an idea has grown into an example of how accessibility can come about and that has the knock on effect of increasing the number of disabled visitors. It’s worth shouting about what you’re doing because it will attract new business.
Is there any information that entrants could provide that would show you that they’ve taken meaningful steps towards accessibility?
The first thing is tell us the story of what inspired you to make that change. Tell us about how it is improving accessibility for a disabled person and inspire us.
I am always surprised by what people have come up with. It doesn’t need to be something big and flashy, sometimes it’s little things. For example, there’s a hotel helping people who are visually impaired by installing flooring of different textures so that they know where in the hotel they are.
It’s not just the big ideas, but the small ideas as well.
What other advice would you give to people who are considering entering the awards?
I want to see as many different entries as possible and you don’t need to be the boss of a company to make the entry.
You can even nominate somebody else. There’s also some amazing individuals out there who deserve recognition, so if you know somebody who is a champion of accessibility, tell us.
It might be somebody who goes the extra mile. It might be somebody who has campaigned on this very topic. The more interest we get, the better we will be able to say to the industry as a whole, we can do this.
It’s not impossible to make travel inclusive to all.
