Tourism: Hailey's accessible travel tips and tools
Lisa Are you sick of the same old disability stereotypes? We were told, and we did something about it. Welcome to. That was unexpected. The Disability Lifestyle podcast for everyone, brought to you by care and hosted by me, Lisa Cox. Join our amazing guests as we delve into topics that don't often hit the headlines. So let's do this. Prepare for the unexpected. Lisa If you low vision like me or have other accessibility requirements, check out our show notes. Before we get started, we'd like to acknowledge the traditional owners of land on which we record. We pay respects to their elders, past, present, and emerging as well to demonstrating our thanks. Lisa. Hayley is the CEO and founder of like. Hey, eat. Lisa Is that how you pronounce it? Hailey Like I can one word.
Lisa Yes. Advocate. And she's here to talk about that app and a few other things and really interesting things to do with travel, disability tourism, etc. on site. Tell us that back and how how it came about, what it's all about. Hailey So make it more or less is just we call it an audio guide to the world. So what you would typically imagine, a museum tour, an audio tour in a museum. We do everything kind of outside of the museum, so we do historic walks. we've done prison tours, cemetery tours, boat tours. and then we do the immersive audio for that, and it's all stored within the bike. Hailey And, so you can take your own headphones and, not have to use their old, you know, janky little, Headphones. But the reason we started was, I was in uni at the time, and I had the opportunity to present an idea to the World Tourism Forum about a gap in the tourism industry. And I was originally presenting something about how we rank lowest globally for cultural tourism motivations. Hailey But we have the oldest living culture on Earth. but I didn't really have a solution for it. I was kind of more presenting it as a research topic. And so the the night before, I was talking to my friend Henry, who's been blind since birth, and he was telling me about a trip that he did to Mount Kilimanjaro and afterwards, you know, just highlight the whole thing. Hailey And then he wanted to come back, and do something just as exciting. So everybody told him and even Google told him that he had to go on a safari, which he did, and he described it as a face full of dirt. It smells like shit. And he didn't want to get out of the vehicle because he didn't want to get eaten alive. Hailey And we laughed about it originally. But when I asked him, well, you know, I was kind of thinking, oh, I don't have that experience. and so when I asked him what would make that experience better, he said two things to me that I thought, were actually quite simple to solve. He said, I'd love to have the right accessibility information so that I can make informed decisions about where I want to go myself.
Hailey and I would love to walk down the street and listen to the stories and sounds of the world around me. And so I presented this idea of an audio guide to the world, to our tourism forum. We end up winning the Global Innovation Award. And once we won that, I was like, all right, it must be something in this. Lisa Yeah, I think yeah. Hailey So that was, it was pretty crazy. It went from like a little idea overnight, you know, being in Switzerland, at a global event. but. Yeah. So that's how we started. It's pretty interesting. Oh, that's that's great. Lisa I heard the the story is how robot started. But I know you're a technical speaker as well as in the audience for your for your presentation and during the opening, you said something that really struck a chord with me, and that was about how people think about accessibility and what they can do different. Like, can you explain that to me?
Hailey Yeah. So the when we came into this space, we really only launched around in 2022, which I'm sure you know, we've been flying the flag for a long time. You know, people in the disability space. But as far as accessible tourism, it kind of started to have that conversation around at the state and national level around that time. Hailey And when we started talking to people, the number one thing they'll say is that, oh yeah, we're accessible. We have a ramp, or we're going to be accessible. We're going to build a ramp. and for us, we typically look at the visitor experience and we look at how do we make a bad experience better. Not necessarily a good experience. Hailey Great. and so, you know, the biggest thing that we said is it's it's more than just a ramp. It's about. Lisa It is about so much more than ever. And and Lindsay who Lindsay. Not who did our last podcast. Hey is a person with disabilities and we're speaking about this as well. And it's not just about example. That's a problem I've had with hotels. I have a ramp at the front door and they're disability friendly. But then if you don't have a shower or get to the mall or there's just this is not not done.
Lisa So what's the overall goal of that kind of. Hailey A goal is to just audio describes the world. So anywhere you go, you can listen to the stories and sounds a lot around you while also having accurate accessibility information. So what's really interesting about the app is that, you know, now it's quite reflective of the general population as far as our user base goes. So we have, you know, still more people with a disability, but about 70%, of people on our platform don't identify as having a disability. Hailey and next biggest use, user group people on the autism spectrum, because I use it as a way to familiarize themselves before they go. and then it's people who are blind. But because we have that accurate accessibility information, allows people to plan, but because we designed with people with disability first and we made it so sensory.
Hailey Now everybody enjoys it. Everybody likes it because it was designed for everyone. It wasn't just designed for people with disability. Lisa So it universal design is. Hailey Exactly. Lisa That. So tell me about the team putting myself doing great things. The team of like, hey, there's people there with disabilities. Hailey Yeah. So our content writers are blind and low vision, or have low vision, which provides is really cool, you know, approach on describing a destination. So the way we talk about it is instead of saying, go up to the top of the mountain and look at the view, which is what traditional tourism marketing is, we say, go up to the top of the mountain and this is the view, and we explain the view and we talk about the trees and the sounds and you know, what you're looking out at.
Hailey and then also kind of the birds or whatever that you can look out for. And it's not just necessarily a nature hike up. Actually, around 60% of them are indoors. but I think it takes that concept of instead of look at the view, how do you make it really sensory? multi-sensory for everyone. And so because they're blind, low vision, I, you know, they have that really unique, approach of asking and working with tourism operators, you know. Hailey Oh, but you said, you know, that there's a train outside your place. And I was like, yeah, but why is that relevant? And it's like, because that actually adds to the experience when you're walking and you can hear the sound of a sugar cane going, sugar cane train going next to you, you know, and you know, things like that that make it a lot more multi-sensory and also means that these tourism operators will walk away knowing that they've worked with people with a disability. Hailey And it kind of challenges that stereotype that's out there.
Lisa Or somewhere, all of that, that challenges stereotypes. Yeah. And listens. No, it's not just enough. So all available on a website. Hailey Yeah. So we've got our available on the app. We have it available on our website. but then we also have a range of technology that allows all tourism operators to put it on their website in their brand, and it's an accessible audio player. it's compatible with Screen Reader, it's got transcripts. and it's quite an initiative to use. Lisa Like I was, I was on the website recently and thought, oh, look at an area that I already know about and tap do not think tended to us. Hailey Oh, that's just gone up. Lisa I was just. Hailey Yeah, yeah.
Lisa And I listened to the audio description as someone with with vision impairment, not completely blind. Totally. enjoyed it. And on this so much on this, on this tool, on this trip that I just missed because I couldn't see it or I just didn't do it in the first place because of accessibility requirements or those sorts of things. Lisa So it's so well together. But the tourism industry more generally, it's picked up a tiny bit around the accessibility and the pennies from that are people of disabilities, travel, all sorts of disabilities. And how do you think of all the places you've traveled? I think before the podcast, you say 45 countries or something? Yeah, yeah, 45 countries. Who is doing it? Lisa Well, in your opinion? Hailey So I think South Korea is has a really good plan to make all of the, you know, tourism attractions accessible. So they've got a ten year plan which has range from 2017 to 2027. So doing this a bit before it was cool. Right. and they focused on five key areas. And within those five key areas, their goal is to make every tourism site across the country, completely accessible. Hailey And so they're doing it one day, one venue at a time. And their goal is in that ten year plan to have 10% of their tourism operators completely accessible. And so the five areas that I have is in improving tourism site facilities. Those are your bathrooms and etc., etc.. Then there's the strengthening city transportation links. So making sure that you can actually get to, you know, a destination can be accessible.
Hailey but if you can't get there, you know, that makes it incredibly hard, enhancing physical accessibility. So everything from ramps to getting in the door to navigating the whole venue, developing inclusive experiences. so that kind of comes down to, you know, sign language tours, audio tours, finding a way, you know, allowing people to get on a gondola, and having, you know, not a glass bottom so that wheelchairs can come on it. Hailey And the last one is improving accessibility information. And so getting accurate accessibility information and providing it so people can plan their tours. And they're sitting in around 6 to 7%, with a couple years away and Covid in the middle. And you know, I when I was there, I was looking around and I really felt like when a destination and a tourism attraction was there and had been worked on, it was fully accessible. Lisa On us by South Korea. I love they've got KPIs around it. Instead of just vaguely saying, we want to do something good or, you know, we want to improve it, but there's that dark behind set agenda. So that's who's doing it really well, who's maybe not doing it so well and things need to improve. Hailey So I you know, actually one of the places that I think is also doing it well, but it's still quite negative is Australia, you know, I think a lot of, you know, our plans and our funding that have gone into it recently has been such an incredible, step. And there's been so much progress. And I'm sure you felt it here as well, which is the conversation is happening.
Hailey There's more representation in media. but since we are in Australia, I think this is a good place to say that, you know, Australia always has improvements to make. And I think, you know, there is that notable absence of concrete and a concrete and tangible strategy for the future, and especially in Queensland. You know, we've got the Olympic and Paralympic Games. Lisa Coming, really keen to see how my city transforms after the Paris. Hailey Exactly. And you know, you know, even if it's not from an inclusion perspective, you know, we've got the largest disability voices in the world coming to our city. and we need to be ready for it. And if not, it's going to be a PR disaster, if anything. But it should also just it should also be a really good way to get people, you know, up and running about it.
Hailey And the new strategy that's come out a couple of weeks ago is really good. it kind of changed over like the last like six months, from being a couple of points to being one of the two overarching strategies for the Olympic and Paralympic Games. And so everything that we do, we need to consider accessibility, and First Nations culture in it. Hailey And I think that's going to be incredible, like progress, forward. I do think there's a, you know, we need to have a strategy on, you know, it's good to say it's accessibility. We're going to think about it, but we really need to have I think we need to really break down what that looks like. And if we can make a plan going forward, I think we'll see big progress in this space. Hailey But there just currently isn't one.
Lisa So this this question might be similar to what you said, similar to what you just said. But apart from the benefits to people with disabilities, all we can actually see and experience and feel all of the sights and sounds of an attraction or a venue. What are the benefits to other people? Maybe business or government, etc.? Hailey Well, it's just a good business decision. You know, I even think about how when we made our app in the first place, we probably spent $10 on accessibility in our business since the start. You know, we haven't really needed to do anything because we designed that from the get go with people with disabilities. and it hasn't cost us anything because we built it with people with disabilities from the start. Hailey Yeah. and, you know, you see organizations with something a thousand pages on their website that I've got to redo. that's hard and that's incredibly expensive. and, you know, there are a lot of website being really done at the moment, and they're still not considering accessibility and that, and that's going to become legislation at some point. Hailey So you may as well make it accessible if it's from a basic legislation point. But as far as you should do it. even from an SEO like search engine optimization perspective. Yeah. If you have audio on your platform, typically actually audio is typically not searchable. But you know, with our API though media player, it allows you to put the transcript in it, which means that all the words that are said can also be searchable and even putting transcripts on your website, for videos that are up there, allows you to have so much information that's searchable, that's hidden in the transcript, but that allows more people to be driven to your page. Hailey So when you make your products more accessible on your website, it also means that the they can scrape information data from your website. But if you hide it behind a photo and you don't adult text or you don't, you know you want to hide it behind something else. And it it's it's really hard for it to be searchable.
Hailey So, you know, even from a web perspective, it's really smart to make your website accessible. And it's going to make, you know, even when you're making your first page that you're going to duplicate 100 times, just. Lisa Make sure. Hailey That first page is accessible before you duplicate it, because then you are saving yourself so much time and money in the future. Lisa Yeah, I think, I think it's a really good thing for business to hear. But we were talking before recording that. It's great to see businesses just just having to try because often there's there's so much you're all to get it wrong. Will get caught out on Twitter or X or whatever it is now. And so we won't do anything. Lisa But that's not the approach to take. Have a crack, have a go, get people with lived experience to consult or involved in some way. But it is. It is great to see more and more businesses having a try so you don't have to try and so on. The entire website would be great if you do, but as a first step, stop with that front page, that one page. Hailey And you can even put widgets in there that kind of do the work. They they kind of mask all the problems on your site because you can change the contrast and you can change, and they're really quite cheap. It's just a subscription. So, you know, places like accessibility and other widgets that are out there. But yeah, it's a big thing that we say is just stop.
Hailey Yeah. Just, you know, everything else will come. And what we found is actually 80% of our operators who we were their first step. They've also continued on their accessibility journey. Sometimes they just need a little push to start. And it can be, you know, it is daunting. It is incredibly daunting to start something when they know they've got so much to do. Hailey And so that first step is often difficult because they're like, write up 100 things to do, which, how do I choose? and if I choose them, will I get sent by another group that I'm not working on? But, you know, people who I started working with three years ago now have almost entirely accessible because they put a really good long term strategy, short and long term and strategy from what was affordable and what was cheap and what was free to things that you know now, people have built full accessible boardwalks around likes. Hailey So, you know, they need to see the benefit first. and they also need to do an affordable way. Lisa Yeah, yeah. Sorry. You have done so much incredible stuff. But what's next for Harley Brown for the uptake.
Hailey For my kid Haley. Lisa Brown I know I, I have the back Haley round Ben Ali Brown personally but by Kate. Hailey Heavy bag that I like Brown. so for us we're looking you know our goal has always been what year. Describe the world. the way that we're going to do that is to set up teams around the world, and get as many tourism operators on board this mission as we can in as many states. So I'm moving over to the US later this year. Hailey and we're opening up our US office. and we're hoping to just get through it and do it globally within a couple of years so that anybody can travel anywhere they want with the right accessibility information.
Lisa That's brilliant. I'll definitely be a user for sure. Hailey Thank you, Sara Lee. Lisa You are doing incredible things in this space. But who else is really awesome stuff around tourism, accessibility and those sorts of things. Hailey Yeah, there's a couple of great organizations across Australia in particular who are doing some incredible work. So one of them, accessible accommodation, by Carrie Williams, you know, funding and accrediting hotels and making them more accessible. so that's really good if you're looking for, accessible accommodations as a wheelchair user, as my understanding. But she could be doing more than that.
Hailey you know, we've got a couple of great advocates in the industry, Martin Hang, who used to be at Lonely Planet, doing the accessibility he's now doing a lot of, you know, kind of consulting with the Australian tourism Export Council. if you want a physical tool, we've got cocky guides who takes blind and low vision tours. Hailey and they take people around Australia. And it's only for people who are blind and low vision run by Buckley fall on these awesome. we all the world. Do you know the world? Lisa I've heard of them. Hailey Yeah. Amazed us with them in San Francisco. And then just as incredible as I look online, which is great. they help provide accessible holidays for wheelchair users. and they work with them, probably one of the biggest providers globally for that. and then as far as people in the audio gods space, nobody else is really doing it from a accessibility perspective.
Hailey But we've got a couple other audio guide tech companies. unfortunately, one of my editors is Kevin Costner, and, yeah, I know, but he's got this really cool app where it's a bit more, it's different, it's individuals. It's a bit more user generated content rather than curated content. and that's across America. And then we've got Smart Guide, who are global, who've done really good work in this area. Hailey And then voice map, who I think voice map, the only ones who really work with the destinations and the curated content, but the rest is user generated. Lisa And one as much as I don't. Would you have any competitors? I you take over the world. It's great to hear that there are there are other people out there doing journey good stuff too. Hailey I think we can all work together. Yeah, yeah, we, you know, I know most of them anyway. Yeah. and we all kind of have the same goal, which is what do I describe the world and, you know, as one too many operators in the world to do it alone. So. Yeah, well. Lisa You've got to work together for these sorts of.
Hailey Things for sure. And I think we've all got the same goal. we just need to really push the accessibility front on it from our end, because that's what we really care about. but I don't see any reason that we can't work together, and I can't see any reason why more people can't do this. It's a great business and a lot of operators looking for more people to do it. Hailey And I'm pretty flat out. So someone else wants to do a bit of a place. Lisa So if it's an operator, for example, a hotel or a tourist attraction isn't or what I've described, do I just contact you and say, hey, we'd like our theme park or out whatever. order to Scott? Is that is that the process? Hailey Yes. I just reach out to us, just through our customer form online. and we just get back to on the other thing that you can do was message hello@vk.com. Okay. I it and then we can send them through a package or jump on a call with them and help, them set up that. Lisa so I really do you have any other technology that can help businesses? Hailey Yes we do. So we've recently launched around six months ago. audio player, the reason that we built this audio player was because we went to go upload all of our audio guides onto our website so that people could have more choice, you know, not just the app, but they could also have access to our website and our website. Hailey Accessibility failed where we're sitting at, you know, 95% accessibility and went straight down to about a 40. and so we started researching and putting in more audio players, and it just kept on filing the accessibility check. And what we realized, this is kind of no accessible audio players. from a screen reader perspective. and then also as far as transcripts go.
Hailey And so we can host any audio content and accessible format, for any organization, it doesn't need to just be people working with us on the audio guts. So we've got, a lot of organizations who use, just so they can host accessible content and accessible way with, I believe, by the only one in the world, which is really cool. Hailey I hope there's a bit more soon. and then you can also white label it to be in your brand. Oh, cool. Yeah. Lisa So I can give us some idea of some of the businesses or organizations that you, you did this great work with. Hailey So we work with a core, across some of their hotel brands, particularly the pet, those ones, across Queensland, Tasmania. But we're slowly rolling out across all of them. We have Dreamworld, which was slightly audio describing the rides. White Ranch Farm and Muji Animal Sanctuary. They, you know, little farms and sanctuaries, in Queensland and northern New South Wales. Hailey And we've got a range of ones like that. but we also work with state. So we work with Tourism Tasmania, we work with Destination Gold Coast, where in about 50 to 70 regions across Australia. So you can probably pretty safely travel to most places, especially Rurally, on the platform. And so we're pretty built out across the country. Hailey We've got maybe around 500 audio guides that you can access on there.
Lisa That's very cool. And it's it's good to add that to. No, it's not just the the big shiny attractions that that get your attention. That's, tiny little two person farms and those sorts of things. So anyone can order describe. Yeah. Their experiences. Hailey Yeah. We work with everyone at all levels. which is, it's really fun. Like some of the smaller operators, they have really immersive experiences, especially the farms, because you can get the sounds that goats and they show you. But do you call it in ride and say, you know what sounds? So look for, which is really fun. Yeah. Hailey We're good. Lisa It's cool. Cool.
Hailey Just in case anybody wants to. It's a simple audio plan. It's really easy for us to do. You just need to upload a file. Lisa That's that's really cool. And I. It wouldn't be worth mentioning on the, on this, but have to read the papers, long papers at the moment. And really some of them had an off on these thing like 1 or 2, some forms articles that will have their press play and also in the audio. Right. Because even though I can read, it takes me forever. Lisa And then about the time I get to the bottom of forgotten what? Hailey Yeah, I forgot I'm not the first officer.
Lisa To copy and paste the research paper into words. And then I have a and accessibility feature they can read loud. So I'm just listening to all this research practice on audio. This is terrible voice. Try to listen to me. But I really really wish it would be so easy if those those websites and papers and articles, sites and everything just had a audio function in them to begin with, even though it's not tourism. Hailey But yeah, we definitely want to download a, we want to make a tool that will allow people to just do it automatically. Lisa So I highly you've got a few stats around how Australia is going with regard to snowmobile tourism of the market and those sorts of things. Can you tell listeners what that looks like? Hailey Well, the stats are changing every year, but as far as this year, in the June quarter last year, the disability dollar for accessible tourism was around 6.8 billion, which equates to around 21% of the total tourism industry for that quarter. So that means people with disabilities are traveling and they are looking for experiences. And they, you know, they typically bring more people, they spend more and they stay longer. Hailey which is what that statistic is showing. And so they are a high value traveler, if that's how we're going to look at it for the dollar. and, you know, making our business accessible, is going to be good for your business. And it's also going to be the right thing to do. Lisa Exactly. And not just for people with disabilities, but again, aging population. People will have a temporary injury needing needing accessibility as well. And we mentioned this on a previous podcast with Lindsay. But it's worth repeating. It's not just about that. That one person in a wheelchair or with a disability, for example, but it's about the multitude of people that they bring with them, their family, friends, whoever.
Lisa all that experience. So it's it's something that businesses in tourism really need to consider. Hailey And I think they are, and I think we've seen a big change in the perceptions of people, with disabilities and travelers, and the families that come with it. But I do I do think for a long time it was a just a lack of education. yeah. You know, and I think now that we're able to talk about it in the tourism industry, and it is on every single panel at every single state tourism conference and at the national state, the national conference run by Tourism Australia. Hailey I have seen just that understanding from the tourism operators. It's significantly greater, than what it was when we started. You know, the conversations that people are having, there are a lot deeper, and the progress and plans are there for these operators, whether they've done it yet. but it's also something they're thinking about, which is, you know, when I started in this industry, they weren't thinking about it. Lisa So to say. Hailey And then say, I can, I can say the I can say the and then disability, I can do, I can just because this question. Yeah.
Lisa Everyone. Yeah. So Hayley, what is it about you that's unexpected? Hailey I have a hidden disability, so I've got short term memory loss. I'm in the first percentile, which they tell me. if there was 100 people in the class getting tested for your memory, you'd be the worst. But that was really flattering. You know. Lisa You're not the perfect person to, If I've got bad memories. I don't know how I've done this.
Hailey How do I laser it? I was laughing before this because we were talking about. We just don't even know what we're gonna be talking about for most of the time. and I've also got auditory processing disorder, and, you know, auditory processing disorder. I haven't really ever seen spoken about, but it means that you kind of just process everything at once. Hailey And sometimes it can be hard to differentiate between conversations. So especially loud rooms, it just kind of either sounds like gibberish or one long sentence that doesn't make much sense. and so I often like disassociated in loud rooms, but there's a lot of things that you can do to kind of help mask it. yeah. Which been lucky enough going to an audiologist. Hailey they've really helped me through it. And even when Ada from Ted sent me a Ted, Ted talk of this audiologist who, has actually allowed people to unlearn auditory processing disorder, which I haven't seen yet. So I'm going to have to check that out because I'm making my life a lot less stressful.
Lisa In my body. Yeah, not for me. Yeah. Hailey I know, I know that she's always got some tips up her sleeve for everything because she works with everyone from everything that she's writing. Lisa Thank you very much. And then as well, I know you said you had mentioned it before, but I think it's important for listeners to hear that after you've just done all of these extraordinary things, when at the, you know, white House doing all these white things, and by the white visitors there would be two sides smashing with stereotypes that we're all only capable of, of so much.
Hailey Yeah, I think I think getting diagnosed helps a lot because it helps make a lot more sense of your brain and why maybe some things are not as easy. It allows you to allows you to focus on how you can fix it and how you can. Why not fix, but how you can find ways to make it a lot easier for yourself? Lisa Yeah, yeah, having having that time around definitely helps, especially the audiologists, neurologists. So whoever may day. But hey Brown, thank you so much for being on the pod today. Hailey Thanks, Lisa. Lisa You really good to hear about okay. So where can people find you the like, hey, it's kind of you.
Hailey So you can find us on our website okay. A.com VK it is spelled V I see a y. It you can also download the app on Google Play or on the App Store and it's just like it. you can probably also search travel audio guides if you can't remember our name. And it probably be up there too. Hailey and yeah, on our operator's website. So if you say a tourism operator with a QR code at the door, or at the front desk, make sure to scan it and, you know, check out the audio guides, because they are they're pretty good. The content is incredible. Lisa They are really good. The ones I've listened to, a fantastic so encouraging. Everybody can listen whether or not you have disabilities, because they add a whole new level of, experience enjoyment to people who aren't necessarily vision impaired as well.
Hailey So yeah, it's I think it's a great experience for everyone. I typically rate, because I've got auditory processing. So I've never listened to one, but I've read them all, read them all, and I love them. Lisa Awesome. Well, thank you again. Hailey Thank you Lisa. Lisa Thanks for listening to that was unexpected. If you liked what you heard and you want to hear more, then hit subscribe wherever you get your fix. Have any questions or topics that you'd love for us to tackle? Great email podcast at Young Hair Outcomes at IU. We can't wait to hear from you! Check it out, show notes for transcripts, video recordings, and find out more about our guests plus the useful resources they share.
Lisa You can reach us on Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn. At younger hours, let's not forget an inclusive community is everyone's business. So let's keep working together to break down barriers and smash some stereotypes.
2024-09-07 20:51
