TravelAbility In the News
July 29, 2024
Glidance Wins TravelAbility Competition at Destinations International Convention
Glidance, a pioneer in facilitating mobility for the blind, emerged as the champion in the InnovatAble@DI Pitchfest earlier this month during the Destinations International (DI) Annual Convention in Tampa. The event hosted by TravelAbility and celebrating the 34th anniversary of the American with Disabilities Act (ADA) showcased cutting-edge innovations designed to remove barriers for travelers with disabilities.
July 24, 2024
TravelAbility Announces Results of “Inches Matter,” A survey of Bed Heights in 24 Hotel ADA Rooms
For individuals who depend on wheelchairs to get where they’re going, traveling can often feel like a gamble due to the lack of standardized information on hotel accessibility. While their homes are tailored to their needs, and they are familiar with accessible local businesses, the same cannot be said for the hotels they may visit. Images of hotel amenities are plentiful, yet details on ADA-compliant rooms are often scarce, leaving wheelchair users without the necessary information they so critically need to plan their travels.
July 17, 2024
New ‘Accessibility Playbook’ Is Designed to Enhance Travel for People with Disabilities
Destinations International (DI) and TravelAbility have jointly released the “Accessibility Playbook,” a comprehensive guide aimed at improving travel experiences for people with disabilities. The new toolkit provides destinations and travel businesses with resources to enhance their accessibility and inclusion initiatives.
June 29, 2024
How hotels can best help disabled travelers
Here’s what I don’t get: Hotels have spent millions of dollars to comply with the physical requirements of the Americans With Disabilities Act, but many won’t spend a few hours creating a landing page on their website describing their accessibility features — including accurate dimensions of their features, which is critical information for travelers with disabilities…. At TravelAbility we launched “Heads in Accessible Beds,” a pilot program with four destinations to collect and share essential data on sleeping room bed heights, bathrooms and pool lifts. In the chart above are some early results submitted from eight participating hotels in Alexandria, Va., that revealed there was a 14-inch variation in bed height from just eight properties.
December 7, 2023
DI Partners With Accessibility Expert to Advise DMOs
People with disabilities comprise 20 percent of the population, per industry estimates, but travel and meetings are rarely fully accessible. To help close the gap, Destinations International has partnered with TravelAbility to support DI’s more than 700 destination marketing organization members in furthering their inclusion strategies.
September 19, 2023
Travel Oregon Staff & DMO Partners Attend TravelAbility Summit on Accessibility in Tourism
In August, Travel Oregon staff and DMO partners traveled to Savannah, Georgia to gain a deeper understanding of the emerging market of accessibility in tourism at the 2023 TravelAbility Summit. Oregon had the strongest state presence at the conference—a clear sign of how highly the tourism industry in Oregon values accessibility and inclusion. We want all visitors to be able to experience our state’s diverse tourism offerings—from outdoor recreation to sightseeing, wine-tasting, arts and history, agritourism and more.
September 3, 2023
Podcast: Tourism Heads and Their Tales, Part 2
In Part 2 listen to Jake Steinman expand on upon true accessibility by destinations (not simply checking the box) but how to develop a playbook. Hear how Mesa, AZ is setting the pace in embracing accessible travel and is the only designated Autism certified city in the country. Hear how grant programs not only attract visitors with a disability but benefits accessibility challenged local residents. Learn about TravelAbility’s PitchFest that brings together innovative products developed for those with a disability. Discover how Wheel the World is becoming the OTA for travelers with a disability. Understand how ADA is an outdated measurement as there many more disabilities in the spectrum. Find out how disabled influencers are creating accurate and realist travel itineraries for their followers. And get advice on how to tackle accessibility one disability at a time and what the future trends will be for meetings and sports events. Turn on and tune in now.
August 25, 2023
Podcast: Tourism Heads and Their Tales, Part 1
Welcome to another freshly brewed episode of your favorite podcast, Tourism Heads & Their Tales. Today’s guest is no stranger to the industry. We welcome Jake Steinman, founder and CEO of TravelAbility, a platform that aims to make travel easier and more accessible for people with disabilities. From travel and tourism conferences to events globally, Jake has been involved in the travel sector for over 30 years as a journalist, publisher, consultant, and entrepreneur. In fact, he produced his own event under the brand eTourism Summit, a digital marketing conference for the travel industry. In today’s episode, we define what a “disability” is and hear his passion for promoting inclusion and diversity in travel and tourism. We learn how destinations and the tourism industry at large can improve accessibility for this important market using a variety of tools, such as an accessibility assessment. Jake is an expert in this field and offers invaluable insights. Don’t miss this impactful episode, part one of two.
August 2023
TravelAbility: Special EMS Wrap Up Edition 2023
The 2023 TravelAbility Emerging Markets Summit was held in Savannah, Georgia from August 18-20, bringing together destinations and hotel representatives, travel industry experts and disability advocates to share their respective experiences with the purpose of transforming the world of travel into more accessible territory.
June 22, 2023
TravelAbiity’s InnovateAble Showcase
A pitch event showcasing the latest assistive technology and innovations that make travel easier for people with disabilities will take place virtually on July 26, 2023, celebrating the 33rd anniversary of the ADA. The event, organized by TravelAbility, an organization working within the tourism industry to improve the travel experience for people with disabilities, will feature presentations from companies and startups in the field of assistive innovations and technology. The goal of the event is to highlight the latest advancements in innovations that can improve the travel experiences of people with disabilities. Attendees will have the opportunity to see demonstrations of cutting-edge products and hear from the experts that created them.
March 22, 2023
All Access: Going Beyond ADA Compliance for Meetings and Conventions (Meetings Magazine)
Let no one say that greed is a good reason for stepping up to accommodate people with disabilities at their conference and meetings. And yet, association meeting planners who aren’t going out of their way to make their event accessible to all prospective attendees my be leaving money on the table.
March 6, 2023
A Travel Agent’s Guide to Planning—and Selling– Accessible Travel (Travel Age West)
Traveling can be riddled with unexpected snafus. As a full-time wheelchair user, Kristy Durso knows this well. What some simply see as an inconvenience — a heavy door, a tight airplane lavatory, or even the awkward placement of shower controls in a hotel bathroom — could pose a safety risk for her and other individuals with limited mobility.
January 27, 2023
How Can We Minimize the Accessibility Gap in the Travel Industry?
According to the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), 15% of the global population has a disability. Furthermore, the National Household Travel Survey indicates that 25.5 million Americans have disabilities that hinder their ability to travel.
December 19, 2022
Hospitality Associations Petition to Send ADA “Tester” Case to Supreme Court
Associations representing the hospitality industry are asking the Supreme Court to review a case that could determine if “testers”–non-customers looking for violations of accessibility standards–have the ability to sue public accommodations for violating the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).
December 5, 2022
The Unintended Consequences of Being an Accessible Destination
It’s been more than four years since we started TravelAbility, and in that time I’ve learned a great deal from the DMOs that have embraced accessibility to become more inclusive and welcoming to everyone.It inspired our tagline: “All Means All” and resulted in many unintended consequences that have surprised destination leaders.
November 19, 2022
Seven unintended benefits of being an accessible hotel
It’s been over four years since we started TravelAbility, and in that time, I’ve learned two things from our interactions with the hotel industry as it relates to persons with disabilities: 1. They believe they are already accessible if they are compliant with the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA). 2. Those ADA regulations were written for the median, which means that even fully compliant rooms are only accessible 50% of the time. Here are seven positive developments that stem from hoteliers including granular accessibility info on their websites.
June 27, 2022
A Review of TravelAbility Summit’s Emerging Markets Summit
Sometimes the best experiences are the ones that blow your expectations into shining smithereens. Halfway through Day One of TravelAbility’s Emerging Markets Summit, I had to admit that my expectations and mine were blown away. Compact, collapsible wheelchairs. Talking menus. The power of a simple Sunflower Lanyard. Champions of people with autism. A mobility device for mind, body and spirit. Travel companions for dementia patients. A video message to stop the sappy music so we can all get back to living life out loud.
June 13, 2022
TravelAbility Brings Attention to Accessibility for Travelers with Disabilities
Among the more than 120 attendees and speakers at the TravelAbility Summit, there was a strong sense of purpose and camaraderie. They believe accessible tourism will be of growing importance–and it’s personal to them.
May 30, 2022
Five Reasons TravelAbility’s EMERGING MARKETS SUMMIT Will Drive Tourism Over Next Five Years
Our goal for Emerging Markets Summit 2022 is to provide tangible takeaways which will position our attendees to become their organization’s internal point person for questions about accessibility, sustainability and diversity.
February 21, 2022
TravelAbility to Publish Hospitality Industry’s First “Accessibility” Playbook
The TravelAbility Foundation, a nonprofit 501(c)3 dedicated to promoting accessible travel and hospitality, is set to release a groundbreaking fundraising effort in the form of “The Accessibility Playbook”, the fist all-in-one accessibility resource for DMOs, hotels, attractions and dining.
January 30, 2022
TravelAbility Announces a Free Portal Linking People with Disabilities to Planning Content for 125+ Destinations
We are delighted to announce the first Accessible Destinations portal, a free service developed by TravelAbility to make travel easier for people with disabilities. Currently, the site, which lives on the TravelAbility.net website, links travelers with a disability directly to 125 destination pages in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico containing content about the accessibility features of the destination.
December 13, 2021
TravelAbility Accessibility Summit Expands to Focus on DEI, Sustainability
For the firs time, TravelAbility will widen its summit on accessibility to also focus on issues of sustainability and DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) in order to introduce attending DMO members to emerging markets within these three overlapping categoires.
October 2021
Jake Steinman’s TravelAbility Highlights the Importance of Accessible Travel
Today, more than ever, the needs of people with disabilities are taking center stage in discussions at home, in communities and boardrooms. It is becoming more evident that someone with a disability should be able to enjoy the world in every capacity like the able-bodied. With this heightened awareness, possibilities for an enhanced quality of life for them moves closer to being an every-day reality.
July 23, 2021
Special Needs Travel Insider: How to Enhance Your Travel Accessibility Niche
Those travel advisors, venues, tour companies and other travel professionals looking to cater more effectively to those with disabilities should consider attending the upcoming TravelAbility Tampa Summit. Billing itself as the intersection of travel and disability, the two-day conference is scheduled for Aug. 30-31. 2021 at the Tampa Convention Center. As a hybrid event, the conference also will feature a virtual component.
May 21, 2021
Vispero and Revolve Win Top Honors at TravelAbility’s Barrier-Breaking Adaptive Product PitchFest
May 21, 2021
Vispero and Revolve Win Top Honors at TravelAbility’s Barrier-Breaking Adaptive Product PitchFest
September 28, 2020
Travel Leader Urges DMOs to Create Accessibility Web Pages
2020 TravelAbility Summit Going Virtual
Jake Steinman is a man on a mission to make DMOs more responsive to people with disabilities. The Founder & CEO of North American Journeys (NAJ), which organizes travel and tourism events and shows, says it’s shocking how little travel information is available for those who face physical and/or mental challenges. As a result, the group is spearheading an effort to create “accessible website landing pages” among destination-marketing organizations so visitors–and locals as well–with disabilities can easily find the information they need.
September 24, 2020
Building Accessible Landing Pages Into Your Recovery Plan
Building an accessible landing page is essential as we look to accommodate the aging Baby Boomer generation in the next several years and continue to support those in our community that identify as having a disability (15% according to the CDC). Many in these categories are not aware of the many travel experiences they can partake in right in their own back yard. An accessible landing page is crucial to ensuring your travel business or destination is inclusive and welcoming.
August 11, 2020
TravelAbility Summit: Advancing Accessibility One Destination at a Time…
The recent surge in Covid-19 infections has resulted in on-again-off-again restrictions that have reduced summer travel to areas within an easy driving distance making people wonder–is near the new far? It is becoming increasing evident that normal travel for people with disabilities will not return until a vaccine becomes available. The goal for TravelAbility’s first year was to build more accessible infrastructure by connecting disability travel thought leaders to travel industry suppliers and DMO’s for a better understanding of what was needed.
June 10, 2020
Reinventing TravelAbility Summit: Humanizing the Virtual Conference Experience.
While some travel industry conferences and events are adapting and embracing virtual attendance, many are scaling back, canceling or rescheduling to 2021. As the industry’s only disability-focused conference, the TravelAbility Summit team, supporters and advisory board believe that the destination and disability-focused education, insights and networking that takes place at this event is essential for the tourism industry and that the conference will go on.
January 23, 2020
Today TravelAbility is releasing its predictions about accessible travel–from 100 experts in the fields of tech, disability and accessibility issues–for 2020
SAUSALITO, Calif., Jan. 23, 2020 /PRNewswire/ — Change is imminent in the travel industry: 56 million potential travelers have a disability—and 2020 is the year to begin showing them they are important to you. “A generation of Baby Boomers who refuse to accept age as a barrier will create a new category of products, disrupt the transportation industry and more,” says Jake Steinman, founder and CEO of TravelAbility Summit. “If we’re accessible for people who are disabled today, we’ll all be accessible for the 75 million Baby Boomers who will be aging into a disability tomorrow.”
November 25, 2019
Look Who’s Talking: Seven Attendees Comment on TravelAbility Summit – San Francisco
Here are comments from those who attended the inaugural TravelAbility Summit in San Francisco on November 12-14, 2020. “As I leave San Francisco I am reminded of the amazing week I’ve had here at the first ever TravelAbility Summit. So many awesome speakers companies and presentations! Congratulations to to the TravelAbility team for a great conference.” Ron Petit, Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines.
September 24, 2019
TravelAbility Summit Introduces “LaunchPad’ to Showcase Superstar Innovators of New Assistive Technology and Products
SAUSALITO, Calif., Sept. 24, 2019 /PRNewswire/ — Tourism marketing organizations would feel more confident proposing or expanding accessibility initiatives if they had greater knowledge of the latest product innovations and how they can be valuable to them. To address this opportunity, TravelAbility Summit created LaunchPad, a pre-conference workshop the afternoon of November 11, 2019 in San Francisco.
January 22, 2019
TravelAbility Summit First Event To Improve Travel Experiences For Disabled Travelers
SAUSALITO, Calif., Jan. 22, 2019 /PRNewswire/ — TravelAbility Summit, the inaugural gathering of industry professionals dedicated to improving travel experiences for individuals with physical, behavioral, and cognitive disabilities will take place on November 12th and 13th, 2019 in San Francisco. The conference is produced by North American Journeys, a tourism media and marketing company that has been organizing specialized conferences for the tour and travel industry for over 20 years.
January 31, 2023
TravelAbility Partners with the Nation’s #1 Tourism Hospitality Management College to Change the way Disabled Travelers will be Treated in the Future
“Perhaps more than any of the other projects we developed over the past four years,” said Jake Steinman, Founder and CEO of TravelAbility, “ – this collaboration has the potential to make the most impact as it will infuse a new generation of hospitality supervisors and general managers with the awareness and empathy necessary to not only change the way people with disabilities are perceived, but also how they are treated.”
January 27, 2023
How Can We Minimize the Accessibility Gap in the Travel Industry?
According to the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), 15% of the global population has a disability. Furthermore, the National Household Travel Survey indicates that 25.5 million Americans have disabilities that hinder their ability to travel.
December 19, 2022
Hospitality Associations Petition to Send ADA “Tester” Case to Supreme Court
Associations representing the hospitality industry are asking the Supreme Court to review a case that could determine if “testers”–non-customers looking for violations of accessibility standards–have the ability to sue public accommodations for violating the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).
December 5, 2022
The Unintended Consequences of Being an Accessible Destination
It’s been more than four years since we started TravelAbility, and in that time I’ve learned a great deal from the DMOs that have embraced accessibility to become more inclusive and welcoming to everyone.It inspired our tagline: “All Means All” and resulted in many unintended consequences that have surprised destination leaders.
November 19, 2022
Seven unintended benefits of being an accessible hotel
It’s been over four years since we started TravelAbility, and in that time, I’ve learned two things from our interactions with the hotel industry as it relates to persons with disabilities: 1. They believe they are already accessible if they are compliant with the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA). 2. Those ADA regulations were written for the median, which means that even fully compliant rooms are only accessible 50% of the time. Here are seven positive developments that stem from hoteliers including granular accessibility info on their websites.
June 27, 2022
A Review of TravelAbility Summit’s Emerging Markets Summit
Sometimes the best experiences are the ones that blow your expectations into shining smithereens. Halfway through Day One of TravelAbility’s Emerging Markets Summit, I had to admit that my expectations and mine were blown away. Compact, collapsible wheelchairs. Talking menus. The power of a simple Sunflower Lanyard. Champions of people with autism. A mobility device for mind, body and spirit. Travel companions for dementia patients. A video message to stop the sappy music so we can all get back to living life out loud.
June 13, 2022
TravelAbility Brings Attention to Accessibility for Travelers with Disabilities
Among the more than 120 attendees and speakers at the TravelAbility Summit, there was a strong sense of purpose and camaraderie. They believe accessible tourism will be of growing importance–and it’s personal to them.
May 30, 2022
Five Reasons TravelAbility’s EMERGING MARKETS SUMMIT Will Drive Tourism Over Next Five Years
Our goal for Emerging Markets Summit 2022 is to provide tangible takeaways which will position our attendees to become their organization’s internal point person for questions about accessibility, sustainability and diversity.
February 21, 2022
TravelAbility to Publish Hospitality Industry’s First “Accessibility” Playbook
The TravelAbility Foundation, a nonprofit 501(c)3 dedicated to promoting accessible travel and hospitality, is set to release a groundbreaking fundraising effort in the form of “The Accessibility Playbook”, the fist all-in-one accessibility resource for DMOs, hotels, attractions and dining.
January 30, 2022
TravelAbility Announces a Free Portal Linking People with Disabilities to Planning Content for 125+ Destinations
We are delighted to announce the first Accessible Destinations portal, a free service developed by TravelAbility to make travel easier for people with disabilities. Currently, the site, which lives on the TravelAbility.net website, links travelers with a disability directly to 125 destination pages in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico containing content about the accessibility features of the destination.
December 13, 2021
TravelAbility Accessibility Summit Expands to Focus on DEI, Sustainability
For the firs time, TravelAbility will widen its summit on accessibility to also focus on issues of sustainability and DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) in order to introduce attending DMO members to emerging markets within these three overlapping categoires.
October 2021
Jake Steinman’s TravelAbility Highlights the Importance of Accessible Travel
Today, more than ever, the needs of people with disabilities are taking center stage in discussions at home, in communities and boardrooms. It is becoming more evident that someone with a disability should be able to enjoy the world in every capacity like the able-bodied. With this heightened awareness, possibilities for an enhanced quality of life for them moves closer to being an every-day reality.
July 23, 2021
Special Needs Travel Insider: How to Enhance Your Travel Accessibility Niche
Those travel advisors, venues, tour companies and other travel professionals looking to cater more effectively to those with disabilities should consider attending the upcoming TravelAbility Tampa Summit. Billing itself as the intersection of travel and disability, the two-day conference is scheduled for Aug. 30-31. 2021 at the Tampa Convention Center. As a hybrid event, the conference also will feature a virtual component.
May 21, 2021
Vispero and Revolve Win Top Honors at TravelAbility’s Barrier-Breaking Adaptive Product PitchFest
May 21, 2021
Vispero and Revolve Win Top Honors at TravelAbility’s Barrier-Breaking Adaptive Product PitchFest
September 28, 2020
Travel Leader Urges DMOs to Create Accessibility Web Pages
2020 TravelAbility Summit Going Virtual
Jake Steinman is a man on a mission to make DMOs more responsive to people with disabilities. The Founder & CEO of North American Journeys (NAJ), which organizes travel and tourism events and shows, says it’s shocking how little travel information is available for those who face physical and/or mental challenges. As a result, the group is spearheading an effort to create “accessible website landing pages” among destination-marketing organizations so visitors–and locals as well–with disabilities can easily find the information they need.
September 24, 2020
Building Accessible Landing Pages Into Your Recovery Plan
Building an accessible landing page is essential as we look to accommodate the aging Baby Boomer generation in the next several years and continue to support those in our community that identify as having a disability (15% according to the CDC). Many in these categories are not aware of the many travel experiences they can partake in right in their own back yard. An accessible landing page is crucial to ensuring your travel business or destination is inclusive and welcoming.
August 11, 2020
TravelAbility Summit: Advancing Accessibility One Destination at a Time…
The recent surge in Covid-19 infections has resulted in on-again-off-again restrictions that have reduced summer travel to areas within an easy driving distance making people wonder–is near the new far? It is becoming increasing evident that normal travel for people with disabilities will not return until a vaccine becomes available. The goal for TravelAbility’s first year was to build more accessible infrastructure by connecting disability travel thought leaders to travel industry suppliers and DMO’s for a better understanding of what was needed.
June 10, 2020
Reinventing TravelAbility Summit: Humanizing the Virtual Conference Experience.
While some travel industry conferences and events are adapting and embracing virtual attendance, many are scaling back, canceling or rescheduling to 2021. As the industry’s only disability-focused conference, the TravelAbility Summit team, supporters and advisory board believe that the destination and disability-focused education, insights and networking that takes place at this event is essential for the tourism industry and that the conference will go on.
January 23, 2020
Today TravelAbility is releasing its predictions about accessible travel–from 100 experts in the fields of tech, disability and accessibility issues–for 2020
SAUSALITO, Calif., Jan. 23, 2020 /PRNewswire/ — Change is imminent in the travel industry: 56 million potential travelers have a disability—and 2020 is the year to begin showing them they are important to you. “A generation of Baby Boomers who refuse to accept age as a barrier will create a new category of products, disrupt the transportation industry and more,” says Jake Steinman, founder and CEO of TravelAbility Summit. “If we’re accessible for people who are disabled today, we’ll all be accessible for the 75 million Baby Boomers who will be aging into a disability tomorrow.”
November 25, 2019
Look Who’s Talking: Seven Attendees Comment on TravelAbility Summit – San Francisco
Here are comments from those who attended the inaugural TravelAbility Summit in San Francisco on November 12-14, 2020. “As I leave San Francisco I am reminded of the amazing week I’ve had here at the first ever TravelAbility Summit. So many awesome speakers companies and presentations! Congratulations to to the TravelAbility team for a great conference.” Ron Petit, Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines.
September 24, 2019
TravelAbility Summit Introduces “LaunchPad’ to Showcase Superstar Innovators of New Assistive Technology and Products
SAUSALITO, Calif., Sept. 24, 2019 /PRNewswire/ — Tourism marketing organizations would feel more confident proposing or expanding accessibility initiatives if they had greater knowledge of the latest product innovations and how they can be valuable to them. To address this opportunity, TravelAbility Summit created LaunchPad, a pre-conference workshop the afternoon of November 11, 2019 in San Francisco.
January 22, 2019
TravelAbility Summit First Event To Improve Travel Experiences For Disabled Travelers
SAUSALITO, Calif., Jan. 22, 2019 /PRNewswire/ — TravelAbility Summit, the inaugural gathering of industry professionals dedicated to improving travel experiences for individuals with physical, behavioral, and cognitive disabilities will take place on November 12th and 13th, 2019 in San Francisco. The conference is produced by North American Journeys, a tourism media and marketing company that has been organizing specialized conferences for the tour and travel industry for over 20 years.