From Struggles To Solutions: How Neha Arora Is Pioneering Accessible Travel In India
When Neha Arora went on her first family holiday as an adult with her parents, both of whom have disabilities, she learned the harsh reality of the difficulties people with disabilities and reduced mobility face nearly everywhere—lack of information about accessibility at the destination, negligible physical infrastructure, inaccessible communication channels, zero digital accessibility, and societal stigma and prejudice. After all, “no one expects disabled people to travel, assuming that they don’t work or they don’t have money and will be a charity case,” she says in a conversation with Outlook Traveller. After an argument at a temple about accessibility rights turned into a mob fight, Arora reached a tipping point.
In January 2016, she started Planet Abled, an inclusive travel company for people with disabilities and non-disabled people that transcends gender, caste, and sexuality. While conducting research on accessible travel companies before the launch of her own, Arora found that such agencies in developed countries had a single disability focus, which didn’t work for her family. “If your disability is deciding whom you travel with, when you travel, and where, it is discrimination again. Why shouldn’t a disabled person have the freedom of choice when it comes to travelling?” she questions. “From the first trip, we mixed people with various disabilities and non-disabled people to travel together in all our group tours. I call this the privilege I have from my birth that I intuitively know how to make multiple disabilities work together seamlessly in one group.”
Outlook Traveller spoke to Neha Arora about why having an intersectional approach to travel is important to her, how India compares to overseas destinations in terms of accessibility, what keeps her going, and her future plans. The interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.
How do you cater for people with varied disabilities (cognitive, physical, etc.) when they go on a trip with you?
Everyone’s accessibility needs are different. Even with the same disability, people are different. No two wheelchair users are the same. No two blind people are the same. We take into account the accessibility needs of each individual and design the trip accordingly. If it is a customised tour and there are one or two people with disabilities, then the whole trip is designed as per their accessibility needs, working in close alignment with their travel interests and preferences, etc.
If it is a group trip, then we design an inclusive trip where the experiences included are designed in a way that everyone can participate, whatever their disability might be, based on design thinking principles. We are fully aware that there could be times when a certain disability could be rare, or someone might have a combination of disabilities. [In that case], we use design thinking and adapt the trip accordingly. This takes some effort but we have the skills and competency to make it happen and make sure everyone is included in the trip.
In some exceptional cases where there is a severe psychological or intellectual disability involved, then we evaluate on a case to case basis if a customised trip could be more comfortable and convenient for the individual and their family/friends.
An estimated 8,000 to 9,000 people have travelled with us so far.
Why is it important for non-disabled people to travel alongside people with disabilities?
It is important for non-disabled people to travel along with disabled people because most people have never had a close interaction with people with disabilities. They have their internalised biases and prejudices. There is little awareness in our society about appropriate body language and verbal language. As a society, we are either too sympathetic towards disabled people or apathetic. Being in an inclusive group makes non-disabled people realise that disabled people are just people who happen to have disabilities. Communicating and interacting with them in a dignified and empathetic manner is what matters to make everyone feel included. They are not special, they are not different, and the planet needs to become able for them to have a barrier-free experience. This breaks the apprehension most people have. We have witnessed in our inclusive group trips that people became friends, go to each other’s houses and hang out without Planet Abled.
Some non-disabled people have come back to us asking that they want to make their office accessible and hire people with disabilities [after going on a trip with us]. Once, a non-disabled traveller told us that they had been to the destination before, but in the group tour they experienced it in a new way while they were a travel buddy to a disabled co-traveller.
How are people with disabilities treated in India as compared with overseas destinations?
In terms of how it differs from other developed countries, the main difference is that [in overseas destinations] people with disabilities are treated as dignified citizens of society and their needs are as important as any non-disabled person. In India, we still have to come to terms with that. We have not even counted the disabled people appropriately. As per the World Health Organization (WHO), 15 per cent of the world's population has a disability, but the 2011 Indian census found only 2.2 per cent of our population is disabled. At that time, only seven disabilities were recognised. Now, we have 21, and the census hasn't happened since then. So if we do not count, we cannot allocate resources and if we don't do that, we cannot make changes. First, we have to recognise that these people exist.
The Colosseum in Rome and the Acropolis in Greece are wheelchair accessible. Our Taj Mahal's main tomb is still not. Our public transportation is not accessible for anyone. We do not have proper sanitation for women, forget disabled people. And unfortunately, we do not care.
I will mention that developed countries also have a lot of scope for improvement in terms of accessibility for disabled people beyond wheelchair users. There is a global misconception that accessibility means wheelchair accessibility but wheelchair users make up less than 10 per cent of the disabled population. The rest have other disabilities and their accessibility needs are different. We all have a lot of work to do in that direction globally.
Are there any places in India that are more comfortable and accessible for people with disabilities to travel to?
Travelling in India with a disability is surely possible but it is definitely expensive. You cannot stay at hotels below 4-star ones because they only have wheelchair-accessible rooms. For other disabilities, they hardly have anything. Then there is the lack of a trained workforce which is sensitised and empathetic towards accessibility needs. There have been instances when deaf-blind people have been denied a stay in a budget accommodation despite having a fully paid reservation because the staff freaked out seeing them.
With money, you can have a dedicated vehicle with you and a wheelchair accessible vehicle in some destinations. We have to train the staff at each hotel we work with on how to assist a blind person, how to communicate with a deaf person, or what to do in case an autistic person or a person with dementia is staying at their hotel. Of course, some premium hotels are willing to go that extra mile when we ask them to.
But most importantly, accessible for whom is the question we should be asking.
Is there a project you are most proud of since you founded Planet Abled?
River rafting remains the most cherished project because it was the most difficult one to make happen. It took months of talking to many adventure tour operators, who said "no" to inclusive rafting. But in 2016, we made history by conducting the first-ever accessible rafting trip in India. And now we have travellers with disabilities from the USA coming to raft with us in India.
The other one is spreading our wings and making a company in Europe recently. We have an office in Vienna now. I am thrilled about the consulting projects there, and for working with destinations and businesses to make them accessible by design.
Another feather in our cap I am really proud of is the stakeholder consultation we organised for a United Nations meeting in Vienna in 2023. To dig deeper into why people with disabilities continue to have unpleasant experiences while travelling, Planet Abled brought tourism boards, hotel chains, museums, travel companies, airline accessibility specialists, and people with various disabilities from both developed and emerging countries.
The biggest finding was that there is a wide gap between what an establishment considers accessible (meeting all compliances) and what the expectations and needs of a disabled traveller are. As an industry, we need to work towards bridging and reducing this gap, and turn accessible travel from being an apprehension for tourism businesses to being an aspiration where they compete with each other on who has a better service delivery.
What are some of the most memorable feedbacks you've received from guests?
When people say, "You gave me the best day of my life" or "You got me addicted to travel and now I can't stop travelling." Other memorable feedback from a traveller was when they said that after their accident, they never thought they could revisit India again, but thanks to Planet Abled they come regularly every year for a month.
What keeps you going?
The smiles of people when they have travelled to places or participated in adventures like rafting, skiing or hiking, irrespective of the disability. [I love] the opportunity to spread happiness through [my] work. Using my on-ground operational experience to build the competency and capacity of the tourism and hospitality industry through Planet Abled's consulting and training programs so that they are accessible by design wakes me up every day.
Also, the realisation that being born to parents with different disabilities is my gift and I should use it to make this planet inclusive of everyone. My mother is a wheelchair user, and my father is blind and has been using hearing aids for the last several years due to age-related conditions. I am a late-diagnosed neurodivergent, too, so I feel I have been live-trained on working with many disabilities together seamlessly.
Since I started Planet Abled, we have served people of all types of disabilities and combinations of disabilities. The learning has been phenomenal, and I still learn every day. This makes a lot of things about accessibility come naturally to me, and I feel it is a responsibility that I can use these learnings and life experiences to mainstream accessibility in the tourism industry and beyond. This keeps me going.
What are you excited about next?
Relaunching our inclusive group trips globally in some new destinations like Japan, planning South African safaris, and adding experiences to the existing ones in Europe and Asia.
