- Open Doors: Extending Hospitality to Travelers with Disabilities
- Introduction
- People with disability require enjoying various experiences that normal people access during their traveling moments. Most of the people with disability contribute to one of the growing groups of consumers in the traveling industry. Therefore, they contribute much in income generating thus sustaining the well-being of travelling industry. Many travelers with disability tend to face a couple of frustrations and hurdles when travelling and therefore there is a need to offer much concern on the issue of extending their hospitality services (Burns, Paterson & Watson, 2009). One of the problems that most people with disability face is accessing grocery and supermarket activities when they are travelling. They tend to face many difficulties when trying to get various commodities to use during their journal. This issue is most common in travelling terminals where many commuters try to access commodities in the few supermarkets and groceries allocated. In order to solve this issue, there should more groceries and supermarkets allocated at the stations or terminals so that to reduce congestion. Persons with disabilities should be given their own entrance while entering the premises in order to reduce being overridden by normal people (Burns, Paterson & Watson, 2009).
- Problem Statement
- Many of the people with disability report having much problem when trying to access various commodities when travelling. Complains lie on the issue that relate to getting various commodities in the groceries and supermarkets allocated in the terminal bay of which they are travelling. One of the main specific problems that people with disability face when getting commodities in these particular premises is physical access. Many of the people with disability require the use of wheelchairs and other helping aids in order to enter into o these premises. Due to the congestion in depicted in most of the travelling terminals, people with disability fail to have the opportunity of entering these premises. While some of them may have the opportunity of entering inside with the aid of another person, they tend to take a lot of time accessing the properties that they require. People with other form of disability except the physical ones also tend to have problems in accessing the hospitality services when they are travelling (Purdue, Gordon-Burns, Rarere-Briggs, Stark, & Turnock, K2011).
- Some of those people with sensory impairments tend to difficulties in accessing what they require in these premises. For example, those people with hearing problems tend to have difficulties in commuting with the available attendants. Those people with talking problems also tend to have the same problem of communicating with the available attendants. This makes most of the attendants to ignore the people with disabilities and attend to the normal ones in order to save time. The attendants also ignore people with disability because they claim that they offer much work when dealing with them. Most of the people with learning disabilities have difficulty moments in trying to figure out what they require (Purdue et al., 2011). This makes them use a lot of time when accessing commodities in this premises. Another type of group who tend to have difficulties in access of what they need in these premises is those that are mentally retarded. This group experiences the most difficulties while trying to get something from the premises. Most of the attendants fail to offer services to the mentally challenged persons require especially without money and someone assisting them.
- In order to offer the best services to most of the people with disabilities, various industries and organizations that offer the hospitality services try to solve these problems with focus on various strategies. One of the ways that various industries that offer the services in the grocery and supermarket departments tend to improve nowadays is engaging machines in their services. Most of the machines help the disabled people to acquire what they need without having many difficulties. The industries that offer most of these services try to widen entrances in order to offer the physically challenged a chance to get inside. Most of the people who contribute in making the companies to widen their entrances are those who use wheel chairs. The organizations also try to train their employees on how to provide disabled people with person-friendly-services (Wittmer, 2011).
- Analysis
- In order to handle the problem of providing the best services to persons with disability in the premises discussed above, there is a need to apply various mechanisms. One of the strategies that should be used in groceries or supermarkets includes providing towering services to the disabled people. This entails that even the disabled persons will have the opportunity to reach in supermarket rooms located in floors that require use of towering services. Other services that most of these organizations should offer include building of shelves that the disabled people may mange to reach and select their intended valuables (Wittmer, 2011).
- Results
- Most of the organizations depict to have a positive outcome from all the disabled persons who enjoy their services. This is because one of the most important issues in managing customer’s welfare is helping them to choose their preferences compared to what somebody else may choose for them (Wittmer, 2011). While a specific, organization is able to provide the necessary services that most of the people disabled people require, there are able to have more customers than expected. Some of the services that most of the challenged people require to access in most of these premises are the toilets. Most of the organizations nowadays tend to train their attendants on how to assist the disabled people to access these services.
- Limitations
- One of the limitations that an organization may face while trying to implement some of these services is the finances. Most of this services that the disabled people require to use tend to coast a lot of capital while implementing. Lack of available finances to make sure that the organization provides for competent services is one of the challenges that face most of the organizations that offer hospitality services in the travelling industry (Wittmer, 2011). Some of the attendants failing to have the will of assisting persons with disabilities might be another limitation to the company.
- Recommendations
- In order to provide the best services as all the disabled persons may require and appreciate the organization have the obligation of making sure that it employs various structures that ought to help the challenged persons enjoy travelling like any other person. The organization has the obligation of setting various funds in order to help in improving its services towards benefiting disabled persons. The organization also ought to emphasis on teaching the employees on how to relate with the disabled persons.
- References
- Burns, N., Paterson, K., & Watson, N. (2009). An inclusive outdoors? Disabled people's experiences of countryside leisure services. Leisure Studies, 28(4), 403-417.
- Purdue, K., Gordon-Burns, D., Rarere-Briggs, B., Stark, R., & Turnock, K. (2011). The exclusion of children with disabilities in early childhood education in New Zealand: Issues and implications for inclusion. Australasian Journal Of Early Childhood, 36(2), 95-103.
- Wittmer, J. S. (2011). Take a Walk in Our Shoes:The Need for Disabilities Awareness Training. T+D, 65(11), 56.
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