Incentive travel is supposed to reward winners with a memorable experience that they can talk about fondly for years. But nothing can turn an expensive incentive trip into a debacle more quickly than excluding a participant from some of the activities or entertainment. That makes participants with special needs, ranging from physical disabilities like being wheelchair-bound to dietary restrictions like food allergies, a distinct challenge for both incentive planners and the companies that hire those planners.
Rosie Strother, a conference and event planner for Alcon Laboratories, a Fort Worth, TX–based pharmaceutical firm, learn-ed that lesson the hard way over the past four years, when a series of knee replacement surgeries left her mobility severely, if temporarily, limited. "I had to use a wheelchair quite often," Strother says. "I am so much more conscious [of accessibility issues] now. Two steps are a significant barrier when you are in a wheelchair."
As a planner of the company's meetings and its annual incentive trip for about 300 members of its four sales divisions, Strother not only went on many incentive trips, she attended a lot of inspection tours to plan them. "The United States is very easy because of the Americans with Disabilities Act [the ADA mandates that all buildings and other public facilities in the U.S. be fully accessible], but Europe is more difficult," she says. Especially in historic areas, the streets are narrow and made of cobblestones, which are very difficult for wheelchairs to navigate. Further, historic buildings rarely have ramps.
One incentive trip in Greece included a visit to ruins that Strother simply could not get to. "I forfeited seeing half the tour," she says. "Planners must set up some separate tours," such as bus-based sightseeing, for participants who cannot participate.
More importantly, planners must recognize that including people with special needs in incentive travel is something they are going to deal with more often. "Companies have to recognize that [their] employees are not necessarily physically fit thirty-somethings," says Michael Takemura, director of the Accessibility Program Office at Palo Alto, CA–based Hewlett-Packard (HP). "We have an aging workforce," he adds, noting that 42 percent of men and 38 percent of women over age 65 have some disability.
Takemura, who has been in a wheelchair since a car accident the night after his 19th birthday, has attended incentive trips for HP as well as helped company planners arrange them when some participants have disabilities. The first thing he tells planners is to ensure that they give participants the opportunity to communicate any special needs they have. "This covers the entire spectrum," Takemura says. "Wheelchair users, people who are blind, diabetics, and more."
Physical Disabilities
While people with physical disabilities surely have participated in incentive travel programs, how often they do so is hard to determine. Some in-centive houses interviewed for this story, including several of the largest companies in the industry, simply could not find a planner who had first-hand experience with an attendee in a wheelchair or with a visual or hearing impairment. Others, like Bill Boyd, president and CEO of Sunbelt Motivation & Travel in Irving, TX, and president of the Society of Incentive & Travel Executives (SITE), deal with this issue regularly.
"Almost every program we run has a person who uses a wheelchair," Boyd says. "Part of our responsibility is to ensure that a [hotel] property is compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) if it is in the United States, or as close as possible if outside the country."
That means ensuring there are rooms on the ground floor outfitted for handicapped accessibility. Under the ADA, that includes features like wider doors, bathrooms with room to maneuver, sinks that a wheelchair can get under fully, lever-style doorknobs that can be opened by people without the ability to grip round knobs, and roll-in showers. For the blind, signs should be in Braille, and elevators should indicate the floor number audibly. Further, the hearing-impaired need telephone and doorbell flashers.
Still, Takemura says that it's important to choose properties with experience in dealing with people who have physical disabilities "rather than properties that check a box because they've got a couple of disabled rooms." He adds, "I checked into a hotel in Chicago that had a roll-in shower but no shower bench. If I had used it, I would have rusted out my wheelchair."
Alcon's Strother suggests finding where the elevators are in relation to both accessible rooms and the meeting or event space the group might be using, and choosing accessible rooms nearer to the event space if a program includes a lot of meetings—long, carpeted halls are particularly tiring for people pushing themselves in wheelchairs. She adds that these issues make site visits critical. "Only when I did site visits did I find out which restaurants were really accessible," she says. Takemura agrees, noting that many restaurants have a step or two, and the accessible entrance can require "going through the trash room and kitchen, which is not the most glamorous way."
Boyd emphasizes the need for early and extensive communication with participants with special needs. The initial online registration process should not only ask about special needs, "it should explain what [the trip] involves," Boyd says. "If there is sightseeing, will there be a lot of walking, stairs to climb, cobblestone streets?"
Greg Hanss, director of marketing for the Four Seasons Resort Scottsdale at Troon North, AZ, says coordinating with the hotel or resort also is key. While accessible rooms are typically near the lobby, his property features all casitas, and is located on the side of a mountain, which means steep paths that can be tough for wheelchairs. Because of that, the property arranges to pick up guests in wheelchairs at their casita door and drive them to the event lawns for parties, or to other facilities.
A little creative planning goes a long way, says Michael Tovee, vice president of business development for Minneapolis, MN–based World Marketing Group, which represents destination management companies (DMCs) around the world. In the late 1990s, he ran a DMC in Bahrain that was hired by a group of 20 people in wheelchairs. Tovee says the DMC arranged a desert safari by removing seats from Mercedes coaches and putting down boards over the sand when the group stopped for lunch (wheelchairs bog down badly in sand, making beaches a difficult event area) and took them on a tour of the souk, or traditional market, after first scouting an accessible route.
Where to Go
Then there are issues that arise before attendees even get to the destination, says Jani Nayar, executive coordinator of the New York City–based Society for Accessible Travel & Hospitality. "Look closely at the modes of transportation [the group] will use," Nayar advises. Most airlines, especially U.S.–based carriers, have procedures in place to accommodate wheelchairs, but you can't take that for granted on foreign-flagged carriers, she says. Charter buses with wheelchair lifts usually only have tie-down points for two wheelchairs, and can be hard to find outside the United States.
Generally, experts say, American destinations are accessible, thanks to the ADA. Boyd singles out Hawaii and Florida, as well as Australia, as wheelchair-friendly destinations, while Takemura praises Aspen/Snowmass in Colorado for its excellent accessible skiing program, along with Walt Disney World in Orlando. "Disney World is very good," he says. "Their hotels and conference facilities have improved year by year, and the parks I give an A-plus." The key, he says, is first-rate staff training. "Particularly with individuals with wheelchairs, [Disney World] staffers seem to know the issues we face," Takemura adds.
The same cannot be said for many European destinations. Italy and Spain were frequently mentioned as especially tough on wheelchairs, and only Berlin got a good review (from Strother) among the EU's great cities. She says: "Incentive travel in Europe is almost always in the [destination's] Old City—that's where the historic buildings are."
Takemura's criticism is harsher. "Europe is not as accessible, but also the people are not as sensitive" to the needs of the disabled, he says. In the Far East, Africa, and Latin America, the helpful attitude of the people often makes up for the lack of ramps and other facilities, Nayar feels. "I took a ferry from Rio de Janeiro, and there was a large gap at the shore," she recalls. "Four or five employees, not skipping a beat, picked me up and carried me ashore. You won't find that attitude in Europe or even the United States," she says. Boyd experienced the same hands-on attitude in Japan.
Cruise ships are another story entirely. Only the newest or recently retrofitted cruise ships are accessible, says Nayar. Even those are only "80-percent" accessible in the recreation and eating spaces, she adds. Takemura wouldn't go that far, noting that bathrooms are difficult and other parts of the ship are worse, and that destinations where the ship cannot tie up are off limits to most people in wheelchairs, as tender ships are, with a few exceptions, not accessible.
A Dinner to Die For
Special dietary requirements can be the most important and frequent special-needs item a planner has to consider and manage. While vegetarians or people with religious dietary restrictions can get very upset if fed something inappropriate, those with medical conditions like diabetes or food allergies can suffer illness or even death. An employee of a European capital city's tourism board recalled an incentive attendee who was allergic to seafood. The man sent back a salad that included prawns to the kitchen of a high-end restaurant, but the staff simply removed the shellfish and sent the same plate back out. "The oil from the prawns was enough to send him into anaphylactic shock," the staffer recalls. "It nearly killed him right there in the restaurant."
Again, this is an issue where early and clear communications are vital. Boyd says his company calls anyone who lists a special dietary need on the initial registration form "and figures out exactly what they require," he says. "It's also important to talk directly to the chef," and do so early, says Hanss, who adds that at a property like the Four Seasons, "we don't want anyone thinking they had to compromise on the dining experience." He adds that a seating plan is a big help in getting special meals to the right patron.
Whether it's keeping prawns off a plate or finding an alternative to cobblestone streets, the key to planning an inclusive incentive trip is to talk to the individual about his or her needs, and to the venues about your group's needs.
Takemura concludes that the lesson is to plan properly but not to make assumptions because different people have differing limitations: He swims, snorkels, skis (in a special ski-chair designed for paraplegics) and has ridden a zip line in Costa Rica.