Tour and travel company Cox & Kings has came out with a holiday package for the differently-abled to help them travel across the country with special transportation and other facilities.
The new initiative, from the company's separate division 'enable travel', is aimed at people with special abilities across mobility, hearing, speech and vision.
“The financial and emotional investment made by Cox & Kings is a great opportunity and as far as the business side is concern, it’s a viable and sustainable model which has a successful future. This venture is a win-win situation for all stakeholders," Cox & Kings Relationships Head, Karan Anand told BW Businessworld.
The group is doing its bit to make this initiative successful with personal investments and collaborated with government and tourist places. The government of India is working hard to make all the tourist spots disable friendly in terms of infrastructure and helping volunteers.
Enable travel will introduce quality transportation in the form of wheelchair accessible vehicles, aids and accessories like ramps and an assortment of specialised wheelchairs for those who are wheelchair bound. Support services also include investments in specially trained manpower such as caregivers, sign language interpreters, expert guides and escorts making all areas of travel accessible.
"Enable Travel is a long-term commitment to make travel easy and hassle free in India and to empower each and every individual to celebrate their love for travel. Through this initiative we are trying to address various barriers like inaccessible travel information, lack of transportation and disable friendly hotel rooms that prevent people from travelling." said Debolin Sen, Head, Enable Travel.
The market size of accessible tourism is 2.2 per cent of the total population in India. The group has put a huge amount of investment in this project and expecting a good ROI in coming future.
"In a country where everyday commute is still a struggle, making tourism accessible to people with disabilities has been challenging. Enable Travel endeavours to make tourism accessible to all and encourages people to turn their travel dreams into reality," said Anand.
BW Reporters
The author is a journalist with BW Businessworld. He primarily covers Retail, Media & Entertainment and Travel & Tourism sectors
