Accessible Tourism, Destinations for All World Summit in Montreal: Opening doors for those who live with physical challenges

MONTREAL—Information is key when it comes to accessible travel for people living with physical challenges, and it is rarely available on travel booking web sites. That was the message at the Destinations for All World Summit in Montreal, convened to look into the issue.

Travellers generally have a wealth of information at their fingertips. But a traveller living with a physical challenge, be it someone who uses a wheelchair, or who is blind or deaf, or who might have cognitive difficulties, usually does not. For senior citizens, who form the fastest growing demographic, the need for reliable information goes much deeper than a star-rating. Knowing if the hallways in the hotel or in the room are wide enough for a wheelchair or if the shower or if the bath is truly accessible is vital information.

“Now is the time; inclusive travel is mainstream,” Scott Rains, an independent travel and disability consultant in the U.S., said at the conference. “No one has done it right in the past, because, never in history, have people lived so long, so healthy and with so much wealth.”

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