Travel, Disability, and Universal Design: The Rolling Rains Report
Location
Currently a research and educational campaign on tourist experience of people with disabilities - a group that has historically been denied access to tourism the next phase of this project scales sustainable development projects piloted in Asia and the Americas. It implants local collaboratives, directed by people with disabilities, to provide tourism product consultation, infrastructure design, and destination development services to the tourism and hospitality industry. It matches the profit motive of industry with the pent-up demand for travel opportunities by people with disabilities through a series of local projects grounded in the destination's disability community but linked globally through electronic communications, publishing, conferences, and professional networks.
Your idea
This will be the address used to plot your entry on the map.
Street Address
1748 Dalton Place
City
San Jose
State/Province
CA
Postal/Zip Code
95124
Country
United States
Year innovation began
2003
Geotourism Challenge Addressed by Entrant
Quality of tourism management and impact on the destination
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Indicate sector in which you principally work
Community Organization
Geographic location
Multiple locations.
Plot your innovation within the Mosaic of Solutions
Main insight addressed
Incorporate sustainable practices
Name Your Project
Travel, Disability, and Universal Design: The Rolling Rains Report
Describe Your Idea
Currently a research and educational campaign on tourist experience of people with disabilities - a group that has historically been denied access to tourism the next phase of this project scales sustainable development projects piloted in Asia and the Americas. It implants local collaboratives, directed by people with disabilities, to provide tourism product consultation, infrastructure design, and destination development services to the tourism and hospitality industry. It matches the profit motive of industry with the pent-up demand for travel opportunities by people with disabilities through a series of local projects grounded in the destination's disability community but linked globally through electronic communications, publishing, conferences, and professional networks.
Innovation
What is the goal of your innovation?
To make the tourism industry an authentic partner in the aspirations, rights, and culture of the disability community.
How does your approach support or embody geotourism?
Currently this approach is a research and educational campaign emphasizing the quality of tourist experience and benefiting tourists who have historically been denied access to tourism - people with disabilities.
The upcoming phase applies best practices from Universal Design to improve the quality of tourism management (Inclusive Tourism) and its impact on the destination (Inclusive Destination Development). We believe that Green Design embodies environmental sustainability and Universal Design closes the circle with the social sustainability of inclusion.
From the start this project has been a product of disability culture. Its core tool (the Seven Principles of Universal Design) is an embodiment of the political aspirations of disability culture. The tool was forged from the Disability Rights Movement and this project prioritizes benefit to people with disabilities as travelers, potential travel industry professionals and residents of travel destinations.
This includes transforming a destination by introducing independent, self-directed people with disabilities as economic actors, guests, and ultimately equals; nurturing entrepreneurial destination residents, some with disabilities, wanting to serve tourists with disabilities. It emphasizes grass-roots culturally-informed experimentation with Universal Design as an approach to social and environmental issues.
Describe your approach in detail. How is it innovative?
This project scales sustainable development projects piloted in Asia and the Americas. It implants local collaboratives, directed by people with disabilities, to provide tourism product consultation, infrastructure design, and destination development services to the tourism and hospitality industry. It melds the profit motive of industry with the pent-up demand for travel opportunities among people with disabilities through a series of projects grounded in the local disability community but linked globally through electronic communications, publishing, and conferences.
The next phase will establish three Centers of Excellence that provide access and tourism opportunity audits as well as tourism policy analysis and strategic development leading to contracts in: Tour package design; Familiarization tours (fams); Infrastructure design, Sourcing, & construction using Universal Design (http://tinyurl.com/3atjkq); Training on people with disabilities as a market - as customers & employees; A multi-lingual online resource documenting & advocating for sustainable Universal Design best practices in economic development. People with disabilities of the USA alone spend $13.6 billion annually on travel. One of the world’s largest industries, tourism, can create lasting social change for one of the world’s fastest growing underserved populations, people with disabilities - including senior
What types of partnerships or professional development would be most beneficial in spreading your innovation?
Industry partners familiar with Universal Design, willing to implement it as a competitive advantage, able to participate in joint government/industry/disabled peoples' organization travel behavior data collection projects, and adhering to legally mandated accessibility criteria, a Code of Practices, and voluntary Guidelines for Minimum Accessibility exceeding legal mandates.
Further partnerships with industry professional associations, institutions of higher education, and vocational institutions preparing travel and hospitality industry workers are always beneficial.
Impact
In one sentence describe what kind of impact, change, or reform your approach is intended to achieve.
Engage the industry's self-interest in profit to serve travelers and citizens with disabilities through inclusive economic development.
Describe the degree of success of your approach to date. Clearly define how you measure quantitative and qualitative impact in terms of how your approach contributes to the sustainability or enhancement of local culture, environment, heritage, or aesthetics? How does your approach minimize negative impacts? 200 words or less
The approach has been moderately successful since 2003 generating 52 articles, 12 print and 8 radio & television interviews, two books, one special issue of an academic journal, and a daily blog on travel, disability, and Universal Design (begun January 1, 2004). Participation in 7 national or international conferences on Inclusive Tourism during that time included travel, research, and consulting in Australia, Brazil, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, and the US.
Because this phase of the project has been preparatory, coalition-building, and conceptual rather than location-based most impacts on local culture, environment, heritage, or aesthetics are largely the accomplishments of our partners. We have been satisfied to be a think tank, innovation incubator, and best-practices disseminator for the industry to impact disability culture as a whole while overseeing market growth and industry practice globally rather than locally. To the extent that we have strengthened the cultural and economic sustainability of our partners we have contributed to their local successes. Perhaps they will chose to tell the stories of their local success and strategies in the Comment section below.
How does your program promote traveler enthusiasm, satisfaction, and engagement with the locale?
This program works dwith local disabled people's organizations (DPOs) to assure accuracy of destination information, legitimacy of development priorities, and authenticity in marketing in Australia, South and SE Asia, the EU, North, and South America. Research shows that travelers with disabilities rely on word-of-mouth recommendations at a slightly higher rate than other travel sectors (ODO 2005). We stay slightly longer, often bring one or two people with us, and spend slightly more (Darcy 1998). There is an explosive pent-up demand for travel that experts estimate would double our travel if destinations were made accessible (ODO 2007). People with disabilities are hungry for engagement.
Describe how your innovation helps travelers and local residents better understand the value of the area’s cultural and natural heritage, and educates them on local environmental issues. How do you motivate them to act responsibly in their future travel decisions?
Physical access to previously inaccessible cultural and natural riches is often the first step in true cultural literacy and green values. The interaction of local and foreign people with disabilities inevitably awakens reflection by each on their personal experiences of inclusion and exclusion, awareness and evaluation of their own culture, and exposure to undiscovered shared aspects of disability culture such as resiliency, interdependency, resistance, humor, and artistic expression. The presence of people with disabilities as unashamed social actors such as tourists with economic means is still a socially disruptive and artistically energizing event in many parts of the world
In what ways are local residents actively involved in your innovation, including participation and community input? How has the community responded to or benefited from your approach?
This project brings together local disabled people's organizations, governmental tourism authorities, and the tourism industry by providing all with common language, vision, tools, and priorities. At the national level we have participated in or organized conferences on Inclusive Tourism in Brazil, and Japan (2004), Australia and Taiwan (2005), the US, Korea, and Thailand (2007). Research has been published in English, Spanish, Portuguese, and Japanese. Articles have been written for DPOs in Sri Lanka, India, Mexico, Brazil and the EU. Book projects are underway with Nicaragua and Brazil. Collaborations creating accessible tourism products are in process in Costa Rica, Thailand, and Canada.
This Entry is about (Issues)
Sustainability
Is your initiative financially and organizationally sustainable? If not, what is required to make it so? What is the potential demand for your innovation?
In its current phase it is financially sustainable through low-overhead. Communications via a public blog, a private Web 2.0 innovation incubator, and numerous articles and interviews are low-cost. Labor is donated. Investment is required to launch the second phase that will establish three Centers of Excellence in Inclusive Tourism over the course of two years. The spike in demand for research and consultation on Inclusive Tourism from destinations and the tourism industry around the world was the impetus for this new phase. Destinations will bid for and fund a Center of Excellence guaranteeing their long-term commitment to implementation and establishing the initiative's sustainability.
How is your initiative currently financed? If available, provide information on your finances and organization that could help others. Please list: Annual budget, annual revenue generated, size of part-time, full-time and volunteer staff.
The initiative is currently financed entirely by the donated labor and resources of the founder.
What is your plan to expand your approach? Please indicate where/how you would like to grow or enhance your innovation, or have others do so.
The ideal expansion would be to open three projects outside the US impacting at least one rural and one urban setting. The expansion would integrate the key tourism stakeholders around an interest in the disability community as customers, employees, suppliers, and consultants. The expansion would blur the lines between infrastructure accessibility projects for citizens with disabilities and those designed for (and potentially financed by the income generated from) tourists with disabilities. Demonstrating the economic viability of (re)designing these locations as destinations-of-choice for travelers with disabilities is a key strategy of expansion - examples of inclusion enriching culture.
What are the main barriers you encounter in managing, implementing, or replicating your innovation? What barriers keep your program from having greater impact?
As a project managed by a single person it has reached its growth limit. It can have incrementally increased impact through endurance over time as the message disseminates and its reputation grows but to have greater impact it must have the resources to retain a diverse group of committed individuals who are closer to strategic destinations and there influencing the day-to-day practice of government and the tourism industry.
Interest in the goals of this project are not lacking. It is the ability to scale up to a level equal to the demand that is needed.
The Story
Please provide a personal bio. Note this may be used in Changemakers' marketing material.
Dr. Scott Rains writes daily on travel and issues in the tourism industry of interest to people with disabilities. His work appears online at http://www.RollingRains.com and http://withtv.typepad.com/weblog/travel/ . Rains’ articles have also appeared in New Mobility, Emerging Horizons, Contours, Design for All India, Accessible Portugal, Audacity, Travel and Transitions, eTur Brazil, Co-Walking Korea, Turismo Polibea, Current Rehabilitation, [with]TV, and Disaboom among others.
For his research on the topic of Universal Design and the travel and hospitality industry he was appointed as Resident Scholar at the Center for Cultural Studies of the University of California Santa Cruz (2004-05)
What is the origin of your innovation? Tell your story.
This is an experiment in social inclusion involving the tourism industry. Now we are ready to extend it to three countries with a base in the US.
I have been paralyzed since October 12, 1972. In historical terms that means I am of the first generation of the Disability Rights Movement. This project reflects the disability community's desire - and financial means - to travel freely and participate fully in the global community.
I created the first Disabled Students Commission at the University of Washington. My peers have gone on to be disability rights leaders in the US, their own countries, and in organizations like the World Bank. With this project we are regrouping and organizing for inclusion on a global scale.
This idea came to me in a conversation with my wife during an anniversary trip as we looked ahead to issues we would face in the decades ahead. No one knows how quadriplegics age. We have always died too soon to provide reliable data. Now people with disabilities are aging together in large numbers and, as Boomer peers join us, there is a resurgence in effort to address unfinished issues. We are not letting up on our pressure to fight discrimination - and we want to travel. So I set out to be the English-speaking expert on this topic for our community. This project is the result of encouragement to take the think tank and innovation incubator approach of www.RollingRains.com and morph it into local projects.
Please write an overview of your project. This text will appear when people scroll over the icon for your entry on the Google map located on the competition homepage.
Currently a research and educational campaign on tourist experience of people with disabilities - a group that has historically been denied access to tourism the next phase of this project scales sustainable development projects piloted in Asia and the Americas. It implants local collaboratives, directed by people with disabilities, to provide tourism product consultation, infrastructure design, and destination development services to the tourism and hospitality industry. It matches the profit motive of industry with the pent-up demand for travel opportunities by people with disabilities through a series of local projects grounded in the destination's disability community but linked globally through electronic communications, publishing, conferences, and professional networks.
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Comments
Scott Rains and I have never met personally, but I guess we’ve developed a little mutual admiration society. I’ve been following his work on accessible travel for a few years now, mostly because he has special interest in Brazil. If I had the time and the guts, I’d steal all his good ideas and use them on BrazilMax.
Actually Scott has been trying to encourage me get develop some quality content on accessibility. If it hasn’t happened, it is my fault. Scott is also keeping me in the loop on an initiative that he’s helping to push to improve accessibility on cruise ships and main ports of call in Brazil.
Now that The Rolling Rains Report has joined the Challenge, I’m not sure that I’ll even be able to vote for BrazilMax anymore.
Bill Hinchberger
Founding Editor, BrazilMax
http://www.BrazilMax.com
Bill,
There is quite a nucleus of adapted adventure tourism reaching critical mass in Brazil now:
Dada Moreira at Aventura Especial
Joedson Nunes and Ricardo Shimosakai at Turismo Adaptado.
Ricardo just launched a new column in EcoViagems where he will constantly be weaving the "Universal Design complements green design" story in Portuguese at "Por Dentro do Turismo Adaptado".
Joedson and Dada are both active in making Socorro a destination of choice for people with disabilities - now with federal funding and the partnership of the adventure sports safety certification movement.
Dada has the extra project of Inclusive Destination Development at Serra da Cantastra National Park Another great geotourism story in the making.
Anahi Guedes just sent me in Floripa just sent me this link on accessibility from Sentidos magazine.
Eduardo Camara (cadeirante) and Bianca Marotta publish their travels in Mão na Roda
Great work!!
It is innovative, unique and it is not a dream- it is beginning to happen.
I haven´t met Scott in person yet but I sure hope this day will come. I admire him and his work.
The combination of Travel, Turism and Universal Design is absolutely important and will make a differnce in people´s lives, in the economy, society and culture of countries that adopt this methodology.
It envolves the whole chain: suppliers, providers of goods and persons: hotels, their staff, architects, engineers, guests; planes and other ways of locomotion, and so on.That is to say: it goes to the roots, it is not a superficial change.
Keep rolling, Scott!
Best luck ever!
Greetings,
Marta Gil
Amankay Instituto de Estudos e Pesquisas
Brazil
Ashoka Fellow since 1989
Marta,
I didn't know you were an Ashoka Fellow! I thought you were one of the few social change geniuses that they had not discovered yet.
I am looking forward to receiving the DVDs set of the Amankay Institute's film series. Being a "cadeirante" here in my wheelchair I particularly enjoyed watching the online version of "Dança em Cadeira de Rodas: Reabilitação e Arte" ("Dance in a Wheelchair: Rehabilitation and Art") If your rehearsals are all that energetic now I know why my friends in Axis Dance Company here in the San Francisco Bay Area are always so exhausted!
By the way, congratulations on your anniversary at Bengala Legal.
You have a unique multiple disability constituency informing you on the Brazilian scene. Do you know if progress ha been made on the city of Rio de Janeiro's promise to train 200 people with disabilities in tourism in 2008? What do you hear of other progress toward inclusive geotourism in Brazil recently?
Oi Marta,
O pacote acaba de chegar com os DVD "Vida em Movimento." Vou fazer pipocas e virar "couch potato" com eles!
Scott
RollingRains.com
I've also not yet met Scott personally, but feel like I know him well. He's advised on a couple of projects I have done regarding inclusive travel in Europe and Africa and his advice is not only useful but often inspirational. His initiatives like his daily blog and his global networking site (http://tournet.ning.com/) are excellent resources and are, I suspect, just the tip of the iceberg!
Gordon Rattray
www.able-travel.com
Gordon,
You forgot to tell people about your upcoming book on accessible safaris in Africa for Bradt Travel Guides. I read you announcement here at "Travel With Limited Mobility." I know there was a lot of fieldwork and research that went into the project.
Did I ever introduce you to Jesse Owens the first wheelchair user to climb Mount Kilimanjaro? He has several inventions that could be appropriate in Africa on safari. You can look him up as a member at Tour Watch.
I would be very interested to have you join in from your experience a public discussion here about how this Centers of Excellence in Inclusive Tourism project could build synergies with Noel's Open Africa project?
This type of project is the only way forward for Inclusive Travel for people with disabilities. The tourism industry only sees the color green and by this I'm refering to dollars. As the promotors of Inclusive Travel we have inform the industry's leaders about the market value potential that comes with Universal Design. This project not only achieves this through various different mediums of web pages, media, conference etc, it also shows how integration of Universal Design can be accomplished from the very beginning of projects through creating inclusive infrastructure for the local community and tourists alike. For me this is crucial, in Barcelona the streets are heaving with tourists which have to move freely around the city mainly by public transport. This has a knock on effect for the local community as public transport services improve. When I first arrived in Barcelona 7 years ago few of the public buses or metro system were accessible for wheelchair users. Now, due to the effects of tourism and demands from the local community 100% of the buses are accessible and the metro system is getting better year by year.
Studies and pilot schemes of this type are the only way that the tourism industry's leaders will listen to the Universal Design concept. First the theory of creating sustainable inclusive tourism, secondly pilot schemes and then releasing the facts and figures of the success of the project.
This work is not just on a local scale but through networking and bringing different organizations together, the word is spread on a global scale with cooperation between different individuals. The private Web 2.0 innovation incubator, that is refered to in this entry does exactly this, bringing Inclusive Travel specilists from around the world together so that they can exchange ideas and create new contacts to further forward the goals of Universal Design.
I for one wholy support this entry. Keep up the good work, global change for Inclusive Geotourism is not impossible.
Craig Grimes
www.accessiblebarcelona.com
www.craiggrimes.com
Craig,
You clarified the core issue well. Short term thinking and myopic emphasis on "heads in beds" is essentially fearful and conservative of the status quo which, in the case of our community, too often means inaccessibility by design. I know you are leading the way in barrier-free design with projects such as this barrier removal project of yours in Barcelona By undertaking your project you created a new venue for tourist lodging but by documenting and disseminating the project you multiplied its impact many times. It is that multiplier effect -- that stimulus to the imagination -- that we want to have with Centers of Excellence.
You proved that inclusion and Universal Design thinking can permeate a destination with your work in Barcelona. You are doing it again in Nicaragua. I am privileged to be partnering with you in your pioneering work. Keep the conversation going by sharing your insights on how to make this these Centers as successful as they can be.
For years, Scott Rains has been leading the way in making accessible travel something people actually think about and discuss. The Rolling Rains Report, and specifically the blog, is my main window on his work.
Accessibility can be such an invisible topic, yet almost every one of us will face some kind of accessibility issue in our lives and our travels. Dr. Rains has been working tirelessly and consistently for years to make the world of travel and tourism take notice that not everyone fits the standard template for a human - whatever that may be!
On the website Suite101.com, Dr. Rains contributed numerous articles on the topic of "Travel and Disability". This was at a time when the website paid nothing to its writers. I met Scott when I took over the topic, and he has always been generous in sharing information with me. The Rolling Rains Report is a great resource for anyone who has an interest in accessible travel.
The breadth and scope of knowledge that Scott Rains has provided and continues to give to the world of travel is amazing. The Rolling Rains Report never fails to surprise and please me with its range of coverage and sensitivity to the needs of people who experience barriers to travel.
Reading about the numerous ways in which Dr. Rains and his network of friends and colleagues around the world campaign for and promote universal design and accessibility is always inspiring. His type of effective, consistent leadership is rare and much needed.
www.accessibletravel.suite101.com