Survey for travel services for senior travelers and those with disabilities
A group of researchers in the US, Canada and the UK are seeking participants for a survey on the availability of travel services for senior travelers and those with disabilities. The survey is addressed to owners of travel agencies, tourist destinations, and tour operations. Results are to be reported in a presentation entitled “Universal Design and the International Travel and Hospitality Industry” in December 2004.
To partcipate contact:
Dr. Scott Rains
srains@oco.net
A Survey of Businesses Pursuing the Goal of Inclusive Travel
(Mid-sized Travel Agency & Tour Operator Version)
Research in Preparation for Designing for the 21st Century III, December 2004
Circulated by Dr. Scott Rains, srains@oco.net
This survey is part of a research effort documenting the current state of travel and hospitality service delivery to seniors and persons with disabilities worldwide. It consists of four parts.
We would like to understand the general outlines of the history and development of your business. Your assistance in this project is appreciated.
Part I:
When did you start your business?
Did you found it alone or with a partner? If the latter, describe the partnership and its evolution.
Was there a precipitating event, insight, invitation, or opportunity that caused you to start at that time?
Did you begin the business with a conscious orientation toward serving senior customers and those with disabilities? Has that approach changed overtime? Can you recount specific incidents that led to changes –for better or for worse?
Part II:
Can you succinctly summarize the business goal of your enterprise?
Does this capture your entire vision or do you need other categories to describe what makes this work sustainable for you? If so, please elaborate.
What distinguishes you from your competitors? From one other travel business that is the most similar to yours?
Do you operate from a formal business plan? Is there anything unique about its structure, content or your approach to a business plan that you are willing to share and that you feel contributes to your success?
Is your business model replicable or is their something unique to its history, location or your personal strengths that make it fundamentally unique?
Is your business model scalable? That is, would it still retain your passionate commitment if it has 10 employees? 100 employees? 1,000 employees? Or does it “become something else” at a certain size or complexity?
How would you describe the part these factors play in your approach to your business?
Looking from your niche and with your business experience, visualize a “co-opetition” environment in which your own standards for customer service could be experienced by travelers worldwide through independently-owned but collaborating business entities. What ethical, financial, practical, or other values would be required?
Is your need for colleagues of similar orientation currently being met for you by:
Part III:
In this section we would like to collect information for possible use if our proposal is accepted for Adaptive Environment’s Designing for the 21st Century III Conference in Rio de Janeiro, December 2004. We will include case studies of successes, failures, and issues of ongoing concern to travel and hospitality businesspeople. You may answer each question with more than one example but please offer at least one if possible.
When made public, these case studies will retain the anonymity of the contributing businesses unless you instruct us to do otherwise.
Can you describe an actual incident that characterizes your business operating at its best in serving clients with needs that fall outside the norm (i.e. clients with additional physical, sensory, or communicative needs often related to age (young or old) or disability)?
Can you describe an actual incident in which your business was not operating at its best in serving clients with needs that fall outside the norm? Are there learning you were able to draw from this?
Can you describe an actual incident that captures an ongoing challenge facing your business as it attempts to serve clients with needs that fall outside the norm? (Possible examples: financial, attitudinal, legal, ethical, communicative, physical, lack of knowledge of a disability, lack of technology)
Part IV:
In your business dealings you may be aware of colleagues who can offer us similarly valuable insight. Please send us contact information or encourage them to contact us at srains@oco.net
In conclusion, we thank you for investing the significant amount of time required to complete this survey. As this is an unfounded study we only have our gratitude – and the knowledge that we are working toward the same goal – to offer in recompense. Your assistance is greatly appreciated.
Thank you,
Dr. Scott Rains
1520 Branham Lane #85
San Jose, CA 95118 USA
408.267.4751
srains@oco.net
http://www.rollingrains.com
Travelvideo.TV – your news source for the travel and tourism industry.
March 26, 2004
Posted in: Seniors Travel