Kelvin Crosby: 0:06

Welcome to Investing in Accessibility, a Samaritan Partners podcast. We're not waiting for change, we're investing in it. Join us as we speak with entrepreneurs and thought leaders that are focused on creating a more accessible world.

Kelvin Crosby: 0:31

Hey, it's so good to see you, even though I can't see you. It's another beautiful day in the neighborhood and I'm so excited that you're here at Investing in Accessibility. I'm your host, Kelvin Crosby, and this is my co-host, Chris Maher. How you doing, man?

Chris Maher: 0:48

Hey, Kelvin, I'm good buddy, it's good to see you and to be with you. We've both been super busy this summer, so it's nice to carve a little.

Kelvin Crosby: 0:57

I still have never seen you though.

Chris Maher: 0:57

Yes, you have. Well, you haven't seen me.

Kelvin Crosby: 0:59

No, no, the, the eyes don't work man, the eyes don't work.

Chris Maher: 1:02

That's right. But you've been with me in real life, in IRL

Kelvin Crosby: 1:06

Yeah, I've been with you.

Kelvin Crosby: 1:08

I couldn't resist that one. I love giving people a hard time because people get so... he said, see, and he's blind.

Chris Maher: 1:19

By the way, have you noticed that, and you tell me if this is appropriate or not, but a number of episodes ago I started saying, it's great to see you and to be with you

Kelvin Crosby: 1:29

Yeah, and I noticed that and, and then there was other times you would, you would correct yourself. I'm like awe just leave it alone. Just say see you, you know, and let me play with it.

Chris Maher: 1:42

All right, there you go.

Kelvin Crosby: 1:44

One of the things, as a person with disability, deaf/blindness, is going to hotels. And that is one of the struggles that I have faced when I travel and everything. Going to a hotel and having to rely on the people there. Say, oh, I need to find my room, I need to know layout of my room, I need to know where the water is, I need to know where the ice is, I need to know where the front door is, the back door or whatever, and it's always a struggle.

Kelvin Crosby: 2:14

I'll never forget a couple months ago when traveling to North Carolina and I got to the hotel and I'm like, where am I? And I've been to this hotel before, but where I got dropped off. I had no idea. So I try to pull up my navigator app thing that I've been working with and it worked, but I still wasn't fully confident where I was at. And I think, as we talk about this today, is accessibility in regards to hotels and having traveling access I think this is where I want us to talk about today. Is really focused on how do we make hotels more accessible for all. And what's really cool is, Chris, you're investing in a hotel that is solely focused on this. Why don't you tell us a little bit about it?

Chris Maher: 3:10

You got it. Well, thank you for sharing your personal experience. And you're right, travel and hospitality is a huge challenge for many people within the disability community, and I'm involved in a really interesting project. I'm not an investor per se, but I'm a partner in a project around creating what we're calling, or have called, The Accessibility Lab, and that is within a physical hotel. And so it's a partnership between Samaritan Partners, my fund, and The Schoolhouse Hotel, which is a boutique hotel in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia, a wonderfully charming town in the Greenbrier County area, which we'll talk about a little bit more, but it's an amazing part of West Virginia that has a ton of outdoor activities and beautiful scenery. And a group that I know very well took over this hotel in the last year. The hotel was originally purchased and renovated by a disability group, a group called the Disability Opportunity Fund, which is out of the New York area. A man, Charlie Hammerman, runs that and they purchased an old schoolhouse. It is literally an old red brick school that they then turned into a boutique accessible hotel. They put a lot of accessibility into the hotel in the living spaces, in the guest rooms. There's a restaurant, there's a rooftop bar, there's meeting spaces. It's probably one of the more accessible hotels in the country, but there's still work to be done. And so when this new group took over the hotel from the DOF, we got to talking.

Chris Maher: 4:47

And then a third party, another good friend, a gentleman named Jake Steinman, who runs a wonderful organization called TravelAbility, which has been around for five or six years, and Travelability is all about accessible travel and hospitality.

Chris Maher: 5:02

And Jake has had a long career in travel and hospitality and saw this gap in the market, to your point, Kelvin, Jake saw it many years ago that travel and hospitality is not accessible enough for people with disabilities. And so he started TravelA bility, which is a wonderful organization that is all about accessible tourism and hospitality, and they're the third partner in this lab. And so what The Accessibility Lab is about is turning this boutique hotel into an operational testing lab, a living lab for accessible products and services and technology that we can bring into this physical environment, a working hotel, and test them out. We can get guests feedback, give feedback to the entrepreneurs, we can get it in front of other hospitality brands and players within tourism and it's a win-win for everybody. And so super excited about, the launch of The Accessibility Lab and the work that we're going to be doing.

Kelvin Crosby: 6:01

Yeah, and I think what's really really, really cool is it truly is a lab.

Kelvin Crosby: 6:07

It's a lab testing out accessibility for all, because the idea of creating a universal access type hotel is kind of a foreign concept. But at the same time as we practice and we learn and we grow and we create and innovate, it's essentially going to be part of our mold of society, just kind of like the curb effect or the caption effect, or just when we think about it, you start working on these things, then it just becomes part of everybody's life and we just we live with it, we we mold to it, we shape to it. And that that is something that I think is extremely powerful about The Accessibility Lab because, like you guys are bringing in a new type of door actuator, you're bringing in navigation, you're bringing in other access things, and the other thing is there's even opportunity for artists and other people with disabilities to grow their businesses and so forth.

Kelvin Crosby: 7:23

I think this is something that we really never had before and it also gives people the opportunity to really get a foothold of what it's going to look like, and with the bigger hotels and the smaller hotels, we can create what this is going to look like for all people. Like if I want to make my hotel more accessible, here's some options, here's some cheaper options, here's more expensive options, here's more simpler options and here's just options that are kind of hidden. But people that have disabilities that use those type of hidden navigations or access, they're gonna be able to do it. So why don't we get into kind of the key companies that are currently partnering with you guys at The Accessibility Lab?

Chris Maher: 8:12

Yeah, and, and so thank, thank you for that setup. I think, before we get into some of the companies that we're bringing in, kind of in the first phase, just to reiterate what you said, this is a win, win, win across the board. And so, first and foremost, this is a win for travelers with disabilities, right. We're going to start to test and validate products and services and technologies that can enhance the traveler experience. To make that travel experience much more accessible. And so that obviously is of primary importance here. Part of that is in the testing of these products and services that we bring in, it's about making sure they work, making sure they work the right way, making sure they are delivering the value that was intended for the guest, but also starting to really trying to help the entrepreneur, the companies, how to scale it. And you mentioned that before. Scale is what's critically important. It's one thing to put it into a boutique 30 room hotel in West Virginia. It's another thing to put it across the Hilton Hotel Network or the Wyndham Hotel Network or the Marriott Hotel Network, and so, hopefully, what The Accessibility Lab can do is to help figure out the scale aspect of these products and services for these companies and entrepreneurs. So, first and foremost, it's about enhancing the traveler experience. It's obviously great for the entrepreneurs. They have the chance to bring their products into a working operational environment to implement it, to get guest feedback, to iterate it, et cetera. And then, part of our goal is we want to also give them some free advice and mentoring. There might be some opportunity for investment from our partnership group that's running the lab, but it's also giving them exposure to the broader hospitality network. To other hospitality brands and tourism brands, to really help them accelerate their revenue from a commercial standpoint. It's good for hospitality leaders, right, the brands out there that are running and operating physical locations. We're going to give them insight into these early stage innovative solutions that we're bringing into the lab as solutions that they can then implement, bring to their larger platforms of tourism and hospitality. So it's a win for them. And then, lastly, for investors like myself, and we're going to bring other private capital to the table and not just disability investors but impact investors and more traditional investors, it's a chance to market validate and de-risk investment opportunities because we're going to see it in action in a live operational environment. So, it just checks the win box for everybody that's involved, which is great.

Chris Maher: 10:53

So, the hotel, as I said, the Schoolhouse Hotel, already had a lot of accessibility in it. That was the vision of the original owners, the DOF. There's more work to be done. We decided that the first thing that we needed to do was to just do an assessment of the present accessibility in the physical hotel. And so to do that we actually brought in a company that Samaritan has already invested in called Wheel the World. And Wheel the World has two parts to their business. One is they are a traditional booking travel site like an Expedia or a Priceline, but for people with disabilities. So all the inventory— the hotels, the resorts, et cetera on their website— have all been validated for accessibility by the Wheel the World team, and then they guarantee those bookings on their site. That's how they started as a business. But over the last couple of years, probably the faster growing part of their business is a B2B software business that they have launched, which is called Accessibility Verified or Destination Verified. That is where they go into locations, destinations or hotels like The Schoolhouse, and they'll do an assessment. They will go through, top to bottom, they validate on 200 plus data points of accessibility of how that property, in this case The Schoolhouse Hotel was doing for accessibility.

Chris Maher: 12:22

Now The Schoolhouse Hotel graded out very high on accessibility, but we also identified some areas of opportunities for improvement. And you named two of them about your own personal experience. So blind/ low vision and deaf/ hard of hearing, right. So navigation and wayfinding is an area where the hotel can improve and we've brought in a company around navigation and wayfinding and the other one is around ASL interpretation. And so that was an area of improvement for the hotel and we're talking to a company about bringing their service into the hotel. So the first thing we did was baseline assessment of the present accessibility for the physical hotel with Wheel of the World, and then we're bringing in additional companies around some of the areas of opportunity that we've seen.

Kelvin Crosby: 13:11

Well, and I think that's what's exciting, like, let's just be honest. Has there ever been a hotel fully accessible to people who are deaf/ blind? I mean, think about it. Helene Keller, let's talk about that story because when Ann Sullivan and, I forget her husband's name, but there was one time they were extremely sick at a hotel, Helen Keller was by herself. She didn't have a way to communicate to the front desk, she didn't have any access to the world to get that information back. And from the story, she was guided there so she didn't have everything fully mapped out to have access.

Kelvin Crosby: 13:58

This is something that is extremely concerning. I mean, today, deaf/blind people, we have our equipment, we have Braille displays, we have our phones where we can receive audio in and try to capture that information. Do different things like that. When we think about accessibility and creating these opportunities for people with disabilities, and I'm a little biased, but kind of focusing on the deaf/blind side is one of the hardest things to create accessibility for, because those are two senses that we use to communicate. And that's where, how do we create that accessibility for all, and for all people with different types of disabilities. And I think you're hitting right on it. How are we going to do that? What does that look like? What is that innovation going to be needed to do that?

Chris Maher: 14:59

Kelvin you've talked about that on previous episodes where if you can solve for the deaf/blind, you're solving for everybody because it's so complex and that I think speaks to universal design or human centered design that we talk we've talked a lot about on the podcast over many episodes where when you're, when you're taking that sort of approach, you know a universal design approach, then typically it's going to be better for the largest group of people, not for a small portion of the people. Is it going to be perfect for everyone? Probably not, and you'll still need some accommodations. But when you take that approach where you're involving the community in that design process and that development process, then you're likely to make something that's not only good for the people that it's initially intended to, but it's going to good for probably a much larger portion of the general population. Hence the curb cut effect and which our friend Larry Goldberg has moved us on from curb cut effect to the captioning effect. And there are a growing number of examples of that when most of what is designed and built for people with disabilities ends up being also good for the general population. The opposite of that is rarely true. When your building for the general population that's typically excluding people with disabilities and it is not useful or valuable to them. So we're trying to take that approach with The Accessibility Lab and incorporate as much of that as we can. A couple of other companies that we're bringing into the lab and we'll hopefully have their CEOs on the podcast. We've already had Alvaro Silberstein, who's the co-founder and CEO of Wheel of the World. He was on one of our earliest podcasts to talk about accessible travel, which is a great episode and people should go listen to it if they have the time.

Chris Maher: 16:54

But a company you referenced earlier has developed a new door hinge that can essentially turn any door into an accessible door, and it's a company that the product is called the Hero Door Opener. The parent company is called We Hear you, but the Hero Door Opener is a lightweight, much more affordable door hinge versus a traditional ADA door that you or I could install ourselves. And you don't need an electrician to hardwire it. You just plug it into an outlet and you're good to go. What's really cool about that is, and Kelvin I'd love for you to speak to this, it's one thing to have ADA doors for the doors going into the hotel and the public spaces, but usually none of the guest room doors are the ADA, the accessible button and hinge, and those doors are ridiculously heavy. And so what's really exciting about their product in a very affordable way, that you could put their hinges on every guest room in a hotel, because it's not just say a person who's a wheelchair user. It could be a person who has mobility challenges or somebody who is maybe older in age and strength and grip is a challenge for them, and it ends up being good for everybody. And just think about a mom with a couple of kids and she's carrying a ton of bags. How does she get the key card out and not only do that, but then open this really heavy door and get everybody inside. And so you know the Hero door opener they're putting a number of their hinges in the hotel and we'll have more on that at a future date, but super excited about that.

Chris Maher: 18:35

And then another company that we've brought into the hotel is around wave, is around navigation and wayfinding, which is a company called Right Hear, and they've got a technology that's mostly QR code based and with a little bit of beacons, that they can turn any physical or, honestly, even outdoor space, they're doing a lot of work with, like national parks and state parks, where, with the use of a smartphone, all of a sudden a space— take a lobby, hotel, or the lobby of a hotel, a restaurant, your room, a hallway— you can now navigate that with their, simply their app on a phone within that environment, which is really cool.

Chris Maher: 19:14

And it's not just hey, take five steps forward, take a right, take two steps forward, take a left. It's also providing context. So it's letting you know oh, you're standing in the lobby and they'll describe the lobby. It'll tell you oh, over to the right is the front desk. If you go past the front desk on the left, you walk into the restaurant. So it's providing not only wayfinding, specific navigation, but also context of the environment.

Kelvin Crosby: 19:38

Yeah, Well, I mean, I think I'm looking forward to testing this out. I've actually never tried this myself and so I'm looking to see how accurate it is. I mean, Mike May and I, we should go do this together.

Chris Maher: 19:52

That would be awesome. You know we would love to get you to the hotel to test out a lot of this stuff.

Kelvin Crosby: 20:00

Yeah, I mean, I'm looking forward to be able to kind of have that experience and because, honestly, it sounds like this almost could be something that it could be crowd built, where, all right, we go to a conference or go to a hotel and say, all right, can I put these QR codes throughout the hotel to navigate where my door is, or something like that. I mean, man, that could solve a lot of problems really fast and give you really good information to be able to work through some of those struggles for visually impaired individuals. And I'm curious, as The Accessibility Lab is kind of moving forward, how is The Accessibility Lab looking at not just accessibility but looking at entrepreneurs that have disabilities and really growing that opportunity?

Chris Maher: 21:00

It's a great question. So there's a couple other aspects of The Accessibility Lab and the hotel that the new owners really want to expand upon as things go forward. So one is, you know, certainly with the companies that we bring into The Accessibility Lab to test out their products and services in the physical and operational environment, many of those companies, the founders and leaders are people with disabilities. You know, you look at Alvaro of Wheel of the World, the first company we brought into the lab. He's a wheelchair user, right, he had an accident when he was a teenager and he's a quadriplegic and as a wheelchair user, and he started his company out of that lived experience. Like you, have the many frustrations of trying to travel as a wheelchair user. And so I think that will. It may not be a hundred percent of the companies we bring in, but certainly I think a significant number will be led by entrepreneurs with disabilities. A nd by the way, certainly we want to bring in companies that have products and services that have the potential to scale, but there may be others we bring in that, you know, this probably isn't a big market opportunity, but it's going to be really good, specifically for The Schoolhouse Hotel, and so it might be more of like, as we've talked in previous episodes, a lifestyle business or something that maybe isn't venture investment worthy but is still a very worthwhile product or service to build because it's going to create a lot of value and enhance the lives of many people, and so I think we'll also have companies like that.

Chris Maher: 22:38

There are kind of two other stools to the three-legged stool that the hotel has a vision for, one of which the previous owner was doing and the new owners are continuing to do, which is inclusive or integrative employment, and so they do have people with disabilities in the local community who work at the hotel. They have a couple that I believe are part-time and or full-time, you know, full salaried, and then they also work with a local organization in the community there in Greenbrier that support adults with disabilities, and they are working with them to bring a number of people from the local community into the hotel on a weekly basis to do work at work-related activities. And so that's something they want to expand upon. And there are some wonderful examples in hospitality. One of which I think is kind of like a beacon for inclusive and integrated employment is a hotel in Clemson, South Carolina, called The Shepherd Hotel, and they've got I think it's close to 50% of their employees are people with disabilities. And so there is an example and a playbook out there for how to do that well, and so they want to expand upon that.

Chris Maher: 23:54

And then the third thing that they haven't touched yet but is a big opportunity which I think will enhance their business, is connecting with local groups that are providing outdoor activities for people and to partner with them and to get them to develop adaptive and accessible experiences.

Chris Maher: 24:15

So kayaking, archery there's camping, hiking, climbing, skiing. There's a couple of ski mountains that are within like an hour drive from from the hotel. There are several lakes. It's a wonderfully beautiful community with lots of outdoor activities, horseback riding another one, that they want to really work with those groups, not only to serve their guests for typical experiences, but also adaptive and accessible experiences. So that's kind of, if you think about it, it's like making the physical hotel as accessible and adaptable as possible, enhancing and increasing the integrated employment they're doing, and then also connecting with outdoor adaptive and accessible experiences. And so I think it's a wonderful vision they have. I'm super excited to just play a role in that. First phase is very much The Accessibility Lab, the physical environment of the operational hotel, and then we'll build upon that with employment and the outdoor experiences beyond that.

Kelvin Crosby: 25:19

Well, I mean it's just super exciting. And it's super exciting to kind of see this start coming together and like we got innovation, we're giving access to employment opportunities and we're literally creating more environments for access for all. And that's the part that I'm just like man, this is going to be good, this is going to be awesome. And I'd be interested if you were an entrepreneur and you were more on like a product, like pottery or painting, or more on the artsy side, like do you think The Accessibility Lab would have a space for something like that?

Chris Maher: 26:04

I think there's the potential for it, and you and I have talked about that with your own pottery, and I think that, as the new owners just kind of get settled in running the operation and really get their arms around everything, yeah, I do think there is potentially an opportunity for that.

Chris Maher: 26:19

I mean, they've got they've got some open spaces there where you know I think they could create some space to highlight artists like yourself around artwork and pottery etc.

Chris Maher: 26:34

I also think they have a vision of trying to make the hotel a destination for groups to have events there. And they're doing a lot of that, but that's more probably like weddings and family reunions and stuff, but but more businesses coming there to convene around accessibility, inclusion, et cetera for their own businesses or for their customers and holding that meeting in a hopefully what's going to soon to be a almost fully accessible hotel. So I think that's a possibility and something that I know you and I are going to talk about more with the new owners and see where we can get on that. But it's exciting, it's an exciting time. I think that we're just at the beginning of it. I think you and I will periodically continue to talk about this on future episodes and certainly bring in the entrepreneurs whose products and services that we're bringing into the hotel for for conversations to talk about what that experience is like.

Kelvin Crosby: 27:32

It's super and in so many, so many ways it becomes, it's something that is it's going to be a model for so many different other spaces throughout the country. And it's just, oh man, I'm just excited about it, you know so it's fun.

Chris Maher: 27:52

On that about kind of becoming a model, becoming a template, right, that's one of the things the owners of the hotel, they want to create something that is an example for the rest of the industry.

Chris Maher: 28:04

What they did when they took over the hotel, and this was intentional on their part, is they started a partnership with Wyndham, the hotel chain. And so The Schoolhouse Hotel is now a part of what's called the Wyndham Trademark Collection, so they're part of the Wyndham Hotel Network and that's tens of thousands of hotels around the country.

Chris Maher: 28:24

And so, I am hopeful that is partly because Wyndham see what they are doing around accessibility and they realize that that is a template for the future. And if we go back to some of the numbers that Alvaro threw out on the episode with him about the size of the travel market and specifically like accessible tourism, I mean it's a multi hundred billion dollar market. And when you really think about it, and I think this is where tourism and hospitality they get it and they're leaning into this, which is super exciting.

Chris Maher: 29:03

They know that people with disabilities like to travel just as much as people without disabilities, and they have realized that people with disabilities tend to travel with their friends and families and caregivers. And if you can't accommodate, say, the one person with a disability in the group, well then the whole group is likely going somewhere else. And so you go from thinking, oh, people with disabilities, it's one in six people you know in the population, and so what's it 15 to 18 percent of my customer opportunity. But when you add in the family, friends, and caregivers, that number jumps to like 60 plus percent. And so that's a massive part of your customer base and you're leaving a lot of money on the table If you're not thinking about how to provide them with more accessible and better and equitable experiences, you are going to be at a disadvantage very soon, I think, in tourism and hospitality and travel, if you're not thinking about that today.

Kelvin Crosby: 30:04

As we wrap up here. The opportunities are massive and the growth in some ways. We're not sure where the growth is, but the numbers, the data is all showing a really good for your return on investment. You really think this through and that's the really cool part behind all of this. So is there any last words you want to kind of drop down here?

Chris Maher: 30:32

The only thing I would say is, and we'll put a link in the show notes, but if there are any companies that are listening to this, or hospitality brands, if you're interested in getting in touch with us at The Accessibility Lab about partnerships and or you feel like you've got a product or service that would be appropriate for The Accessibility Lab and coming into the physical environment, if you just go to the samaritanpartners. com website, there is a tab for The Accessibility Lab. We have a form there that you can fill out and submit and that will come through to us and then we'll follow up. That's probably the best way to reach out and get in touch with us about The Accessibility Lab and we'll put that in the show notes.

Kelvin Crosby: 31:13

Awesome. Well, Chris, this has been fun and that wraps up Investing in Accessibility. Go live beyond your challenges and we'll see you in two weeks.

Kelvin Crosby: 31:33

Thank you for listening to Investing in Accessibility, a Samaritan Partners podcast where we invest in change, for accessibility, not wait for change. If you want to follow us, you can find us on YouTube or LinkedIn at @Samaritan Partners. If you would like to invest in Samaritan Partners, email Chris at chris@samaritanpartners. com. If you'd like to learn more about us, go to www. samaritanpartners. com. You can take the first step in investing in change by giving us five stars and sharing this podcast with everybody that you know, so we can spread the word, so that we can give access to all by Investing in Accessibility.