New York-based host agency Fora Travel announced a new accessible-travel program designed to educate its 5,500 travel advisors.
The program includes education on gathering client information and booking accessible travel, a WhatsApp group and a monthly newsletter featuring accessible trends and destinations.
The training was co-created with Fora advisors who personally have mobility needs. One of them is Karen Morales, a Boston-based advisor who started with Fora about two years ago after a lifetime of traveling and a career in advertising and marketing.
In 2020, Morales said, she became a wheelchair user as a result of a degenerative disease. She kept traveling, but it was hard.
"I found that you weren't getting offered the same level of service," she said. "You didn't seem to have the same options. And I felt like, in a world of everything getting harder, that needed to still be my joy."
Morales estimated that 15% of the global population has some sort of disability, and with the baby boomer generation getting older, accessibility needs will rise.
"When we put together this program, we wanted all of our advisors -- all 5,500 of them -- to feel like they could book an accessible trip, even if it wasn't the majority of their business," she said.
Morales and another advisor, also a wheelchair user, hand-picked a list of 100-plus partners around the world who could help advisors plan accessible trips for clients. That helps people realize what is possible, she said.
"I think the No. 1 question is, 'Where can I go?'" she said. "Which is not the same question you get in the general market. Most people start with, 'Where do I want to go?' And it was just so sad to me that people felt so limited."
The educational portion of Fora's accessibility training is online and self-paced, Morales said. It talks about varied accessibility needs and questions to ask. That section highlights how important it is to collect details, down to whether the traveler can transfer from a chair to a car, if they need a shower seat or if they can stand, or if their wheelchair is 40 pounds or 300 pounds.
The same level of detail is needed for other kinds of accessible travel, she said, from sightedness to food allergies.
"All of those things make a ton of difference," Morales said. "And I think if you haven't lived that, you wouldn't necessarily know."
The training also breaks down transportation, hotels and activities, and those aspects of travel planning. It also encourages advisors to ensure accessibility needs are met before the client travels. For example, if an accessible room isn't guaranteed for a wheelchair user, she said an advisor should ask to speak to the hotel's general manager because that's a non-negotiable.
The training is open to all Fora advisors. Around 750 signed up for the first accessibility webinar the host agency held, with hundreds attending live and hundreds more accessing the recording, Morales said.
Outside of offering accessible travel knowledge to clients as a service, Morales said it's a rewarding kind of travel to book.
She recalled sending an 80-year-old client in a wheelchair to Ireland to get married. He required some coaching from Morales on traveling in a wheelchair, but brought his entire family and had a wonderful trip.
"It's more hand-holding," she said. "It's more following up. It takes more effort. I promise you -- it'll be almost more rewarding than any other trip you get. The thank yous just hit differently."