How to Turn Travel Agents into Accessible Travel Advocates
December 19, 2011
I’ve often wondered why more travel agents don’t understand how serving the accessible travel market could increase their business. After all, 62 million Americans have some form of disability. That’s 20% of us. I guess many agents assume that we’re all poor and/or unwilling to subject ourselves to the stress of travel. Well, the facts are otherwise. According to Fortune magazine, 24 million disabled Americans would travel/travel more frequently if their special needs were met. What does this signify? We’re more than a niche business!
Now there’s a first step in making this happen. A Florida-based organization called the Special Needs Group has worked with accessibility experts and members of the travel industry to create a one-hour, three-module program for travel agents. Its focus is on understanding accessible travel, building expertise in accessible travel and demonstrating accessible travel advocacy skills. According to the company, it’s the first time travel professionals can become conversant with the accessible travel market through online study and testing. It’s only been a week since the program went live, so it’s too soon to know how many travel industry participants there will be, but according to the company, there’s been a good deal of initial interest. I hope to follow up with the company in a few months to see how many agents actually take the training. I’d also like to find out how it will change the newly certified agents’ approach to their business.
Can we help? Well, now we can ask travel professionals if they are certified in accessible travel. Or we can urge them to become certified. And, if we work with a certified agent, we can provide feedback.
I think that sensitizing travel agents is a much-needed step in the right direction and I look forward to seeing how this develops.
For more information about the SNG Certified Accessible Travel Advocate program and how it can benefit you, contact your local travel professional, or Special Needs Group at 1-800-513-4515 or http://www.specialneedsgroup.com/agents.
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2 Responses to “How to Turn Travel Agents into Accessible Travel Advocates”
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Educating travel agents has been an issue for many years. In a TTGLive article published not so long ago a wonderful comment was made that when travel agents saw a disabled person enter their establishment they’d hide under the table hoping the person would go away, fortunately that situation has changed in some ways but the road is a long one to bring the disability travel market to the fore of the travel market in general.
During my seminar at the 2010 World Travel Market in London I covered the issues mentioned in the article by Steve and can provide a market report extract to anyone who wishes to have one. I also quoted a number of sites that provide free training to travel agents including the free training course provided by UK based ABTA, now going into its third year of operation.
I hope the take up is good for the new initiative as outlined by Steve, and I wish the organisers well in their endeavours.
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The above comment is by Alan Broadbent managing director of Disabled Accessible Travel based in Barcelona Spain.
Hi Andrew,
Thanks for your coment. I would love to see the market report extract you spoke about and would like to learn anything I can from people who’ve taken the ABTA course.