Banter And Guest Introduction

Kelvin Crosby 0:30

It's a 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 co-host, Kelvin Cosby, and I got my co-host. Chris Maher, how you doing, man?

Chris Maher 0:44

I'm good, Kelvin. It's good to I usually say it's it's good to be with you and to see and to see you or to see you and be with you. But today we're actually in the same room together. Yeah.

Kelvin Crosby 0:53

How do I smell?

Chris Maher 0:54

You smell great. You smell great.

Kelvin Crosby 0:56

I'm having some issues over there.

Chris Maher 0:57

No, you're not. You both smell great.

Kelvin Crosby 1:00

So I have to say, so we we had a situation where you you and I were at the airport. No, well, no, no, no, no. We were at the hotel. And I'm just standing there. And you just keep on walking. And then you're like, why did you stay? Oh, we were going to breakfast. That's what it was. We were going to breakfast. And you just left me in the middle of the sidewalk. And you just kept on walking. And then you're about a block and a half, and you're like, Kelvin, buddy, I'm all you lost your connection. I'm like, well, you left me behind again.

Chris Maher 1:41

I don't really have a good excuse. However, the excuse I'm going to use is our guest today. Yes. Because she had breakfast. Because she was there. She had breakfast with us. Yes. And she and I were in such a deep conversation that I kind of lost track of being your guide.

Kelvin Crosby 1:59

I mean,

Chris Maher 2:00

so it's her fault.

Kelvin Crosby 2:01

Knowing her, I would lose track too. Of course.

Chris Maher 2:04

When she talks, people listen.

Kelvin Crosby 2:06

Oh, that was l- I was listening. I was listening. I was no I wasn't listening at the time when you left me behind. But I mean, yes, I totally agree.

Chris Maher 2:15

I thought I thought you were going in to get a little a little more breakfast meat because you were still hungry.

Kelvin Crosby 2:22

What do you mean? I don't know about this. But we do have an awesome guest.

Chris Maher 2:28

We do have a great guest.

Kelvin Crosby 2:29

We've spent a lot of time in the last 24 hours with each other's stuff. We have. We have. I tell you, I've become kinship with this one, this guest. Uh I'm excited. I'm excited to her hear her journey and where she's gone and where she's going. So introduce us to her.

Chris Maher 2:49

I agree 100%. And super excited for our guest today. But our guest today is Kristy Durso. Kristy welcome to the show.

Kristy Durso 2:57

Thank you. I'm so excited to be here. But I have to say one thing. It's never the wheelchair user's fault.

Kelvin Crosby 3:04

Well, I completely but the thing is that we have to put it to so I called Chris Faddy, F-A-D-D-Y. Because he he he's a fun dad, right? Because he he's old enough to be my dad.

Chris Maher 3:21

Oh, you're killing me. You're killing me. I was supposed to be Funkel, fun uncle, and you've turned it into something different.

Kristy Durso 3:31

I don't know. You're the one reminding us it's getting late and we have to go to bed.

Chris Maher 3:35

It is getting late. But so Kristy, quick little background. I'm gonna let her talk through it. But I had the good fortune of meeting Kristy very early on in my journey with Samaritan, and we met through Jake Steinman at Travelability. And Kristy is an ambassador for travelability, and I'm a member of their advisory board. But we hit it off from the get-go. And honestly, like I've learned so much from Kristy over the years because she, as she alluded to, is a wheelchair user and lives with lives with disability. But accessibility and specific to hospitality, travel, tourism is now her life's work. And so we're gonna get into that in a minute. But what we first want to do, what I'd love for you to do for our audience, Kristy, is to talk about, and you've got several businesses and you're you're essentially a travel influencer as well as a keynote speaker that travels around the world. You've got several businesses where you're advising global travel brands on accessibility and disability inclusion. But how did you get to this entrepreneurial stage of your life? If you could kind of talk about that path and that journey to where you are today, where you're managing multiple businesses and traveling the world and being this amazing advocate for our community.

Kristy’s Path To Travel Work

Kristy Durso 4:44

Yeah, I I love talking about myself. So this is great. I am a I've taken on a lot of roles in my life. I grew up a military kid, so life was constantly changing. And then I decided that I was going to be in the military as well and joined for a long time ago. We won't go with the date, but I joined to be a linguist because they said it was the hardest thing to do. So of course that's what I had to try. And I met my husband in Monterey, California. We fell in love, found out that I had some disability issues, was kicked out of the army for those reasons, and then started traveling the world with my husband and never could really have a regular job because we're always moving. So I wanted to do something that played to my strengths. And I loved getting to help plan our travel when we traveled and doing different things. And as we continued to grow our family, we had more and more opportunities to see more and more things. And I fell in love with being a travel professional when we would plan special things when my husband would come home from deployment. And we always wanted it to be this big, exciting thing. And always we kind of took to the philosophy that we should never have a reunion at home because we wanted to have that reunion on neutral ground to give us all an opportunity to reacclimate, then go back. And we had this one reunion at Disney World, which was just absolutely spectacular. My husband had been gone for a year, and every month that he was gone, something else happened. I tore something in my ankle and had to have a boot. And then the next month I did something to my wrist and had a wrist brace. So I was going around with this foot thing and a and an arm brace, and then Reese tore a muscle, and then Davilin did something else, and we were fostering at the same time and had all this chaos the entire year. And it culminated in the 10th month of him being gone, because he was gone for a year, with them thinking that I had a clot in my brain, a blood clot in my brain. And I had to do all this testing, and it was terrifying with my husband being gone. And so he called me about two weeks later and said, I'm coming home early. And so I called Disney World, basically, called friends that I knew who worked there, and I said, I want to plan a reunion for my kids. They have pushed through this 11 months of deployment so fiercely. We need to do something big. And we had this great reunion. We got on, got the kids on stage at the Indiana Jones show, and they made this big deal and said, Oh, yeah, who's allowed us in your family? It's my dad. Where's your dad? And the kids were like, Well, he's deployed and on and on. And then she told them that this was the place where dreams come true, and she wanted them to turn around.

Chris Maher 7:39

No.

Kristy Durso 7:40

And my husband came out from backstage, and the kids full out tackled him football style down to the ground as the entire crowd went nuts and gave them a standing ovation. And then little Timothy, our little foster kid, who wasn't up there because he was a foster child, went running out there. He'd seen Ryan on FaceTime and was dancing around, no idea what's going on. And it was just this truly amazing once-in-a-lifetime moment. And then the entire rest of the trip, we got to like go backstage at the Beauty and the Beast show, and we got all these special things. And it was one of the most joyous experiences of my life. And I wanted to be able to create that for other families. So I became a travel advisor.

Chris Maher 8:29

Oh, love that.

Kristy Durso 8:30

And then over the next few years, we didn't know at the time the extent of Timothy's disabilities. And as he continued to grow and we saw more and more of those things coming out, he has an intellectual disability and microcephaly. So his head is far too small for his body and his age. I began seeing how difficult it was to travel with a child who had multiple intellectual disabilities and developmental disabilities. And I thought, well, I need to study this and I need to figure out how to make it easier for people because it shouldn't be this hard. And I fell in love with like Beaches and Sandals Resorts because they had IBC C ES, which was my first introduction to any formal training on accessibility within the travel industry. And I began aligning myself with all these travelers who had disabilities who wanted to travel and learning from them and became at the time one of the most knowledgeable people in accessibility. This was in 2018.

Becoming A Wheelchair User

Kristy Durso 9:34

And I was considered the expert. And then in 2019, I lost my ability to walk. I got up from the couch, walked to the bedroom. And by the time I got there, my entire right side was numb. And we didn't know why. I can't get an MRI because I have a pacemaker. I've had it since I was 24. It's not MRI compatible. So we couldn't see the extents of the damage on my spine to understand what was going on. But we knew that it was time. And my doctors said it's time for you to be a full-time wheelchair user. And I got my first chair. And I have to tell a little side story that has nothing to do with travel, but it's just something that I love. We knew that day had been coming because I had an ambulatory disability and I had struggled with walking in pain and all the things. So we had known that day would come, but we had always kind of looked at it as, well, eventually that's going to happen and it's going to be what it is. But the day that I got a chair, it wasn't even my chair, it wasn't my custom chair. It was a chair from our church. They had one as in a storage closet, and they said that I could use it until my custom wheelchair was ready for me to use, for me to get. And we took it home and we're at the house, and I'm sitting in this chair, and all of a sudden I just kind of had this realization. And I start going around and just seeing how fast I can go. And I'm going back and forth. My husband was doing the dishes at the time. And he just kept catching me out of the corner of his eye. And he finally turned around and he goes, What are you doing? And I said, I don't hurt. I can go as fast as I want and it doesn't hurt. This is amazing. And we realized at that point that the wheelchair wasn't something I should have been dreading. It was a gift of freedom that enabled me to enjoy movement again in a way that I hadn't enjoyed in years. First, you know, first time out in the town, I realized curb cuts were never where you wanted them, and the sidewalks were never smooth, and it was almost impossible to open doors. And I thought, well, this has to change. And we began working in our community. And then I took my first trip as a wheelchair user and I did it the same way I'd done for every traveler I had already booked for. And I got to the plane and they didn't have an aisle chair ready for me. And they didn't have all the things that I needed to be kept safe getting on the plane. And I was in the back of the plane and it was difficult. And then we got to the got to the airport in the destination, and they didn't have an accessible transportation set up for me. And then we got to the hotel and they put me in what they thought was an accessible room, but there was problem after problem after problem, including a ramp. And if you know anything about like, you know, physics at all, wheelchairs don't roll in sand. So you come to the end of that sand, your casters get in that sand, and the first thing that happens is that wheelchair tips. Yes. And so we realized that there was a huge, huge gap of knowledge in the travel industry. And I began my quest to change that.

Freedom Without Toxic Positivity

Chris Maher 13:15

And now it's your life's work.

Kristy Durso 13:16

Now it's my life's work.

Chris Maher 13:17

Amazing. Thank you so much for sharing that. Kelvin go ahead.

Kelvin Crosby 13:19

I wanna I want to add something. See the beauty of just hearing your story and my story. And and I know this doesn't really uh go to investing in accessibility, but see, you found freedom in your disability, just like I did. When I lost my vision, I stopped seeing skin colors and I can meet people where they were. And I think this is something that's really important as individuals with disabilities, is that we if we look at the negativity of our disabilities, then we'll stay in that negativity. But just like what you just explained, you take it and you look for the positive, oh man, the world opens up.

Kristy Durso 14:08

Oh, absolutely. You know, there is very clearly a negative side to disability. There there is. I I I have chronic pain every day. I have days where I have to really be careful about my how I regulate my energy. There are places I can't go, there are things I can't do. So you have to recognize that. We can't move into the position of toxic positivity, but but we don't have to live in that recognition of the hard. We can absolutely look for all the things that come with it and see all the work being done and the people who are willing to align with you and assist you and help you and who are ready to drive human innovation to create a better world for people to have better access. And when you turn that corner and you begin to see that, I don't know how anyone can't see the opportunities there. It doesn't mean that everybody is going to have every opportunity, and it doesn't mean we're not gonna have bad days and it's not gonna be hard, but there is beauty in the hard, there's joy in those moments where you can recognize that both pain and positivity can exist at the same time.

Kelvin Crosby 15:31

And I think one of the things is that joy. Where is that joy? And can you truly use that joy to not just impact and overcome your challenges? When that pain comes, when that suffering comes, when that m moments you're like, I can't do this. But you're saying I can because I have hope, and I know if I just take the next step forward, we can do it. And that's what oh man, I'm just fired up about this. And I I know we're not at church, so no, no, it's all right.

Chris Maher 16:10

I love sitting here watching you two talk about this, but it it's I I think about kristy and Kelvin, your comments. Something that I say many times when these days it's when I'm on stage and I'm either moderating a panel or participating in a panel, giving a talk, and I'm talking about my background and my background and direct lived experience with disability is my two daughters, both of whom were born with their disabilities. One has a physical disability, one has intellectual and developmental disabilities. That's all we've ever known. Like that that's our normal. And I always say I we my wife and we wouldn't change a thing. Our daughters are amazing. They're the greatest thing that's ever happened to us. There's certainly been ups and downs along our journey. But I think about that they're now in, you know, one in their early 20s. I think about the young women they've become and the lessons they've taught me and my wife, but also how they approach their day-to-day and and the positive impact they have on the people around them and the appreciation that they have. And so I I'm with both of you that we have to stop looking at disability as being a negative because it there's there's wonderfully positive things that come with it.

Kristy Durso 17:27

Yeah. I think you know, there there's room to hold both things in in your hand. Do am I glad that my youngest child, he's adopted, and his bio mom drank throughout her entire pregnancy? Am I thankful that that happened? Absolutely not. Am I thankful that there are children who have strokes in the womb and end up with a disability? No, I'm not. But can I at the same time be super proud of and love the individual that my son is anyway?

Chris Maher 18:02

Exactly.

Kristy Durso 18:02

Can I can I not be super, super grateful for the lessons he's taught me and the lessons he teaches others and appreciate the joy that he has for life? You know, when he was little, he would absolutely be that kid screaming in the middle of a crowded place, and we could do absolutely nothing except listen to him scream. Do I ever want to relive those moments? No. But am I thankful still now for everything that he taught us through that? About, you know, the lessons that he taught me in those direct moments about being patient and being kind and honestly about my own faults and my own shortcomings in those moments. Those are lessons that I couldn't have learned any other way. And does that make me glad for the hurt that happened and glad for the the way that those things came into our lives? No, I don't, I don't have to be grateful for that side of it, but I still would never change what we've been given. I would never, I love having him. I love him being part of our family. He is our joy. You know, one thing that we love about him, he's like every day is like having a five-year-old at Christmas. You know, he's 15, but you give him, you know, like hand him a piece of chocolate. He's gonna be like, oh my gosh, this is the best day ever. And to get to live with that every single day is exhausting at times, but it's also amazing to get to see that childlike.

Chris Maher 19:32

I agree 100%. The uh we might have to do another episode where we just talk about our families and our experiences. And what's interesting is that that Timothy, have you adopted him since fostering?

Kristy Durso 19:43

Yeah, we we fostered him for a year and a half,

Chris Maher 19:45

gotcha,

Kristy Durso 19:45

and then we adopted him.

Chris Maher 19:47

Kelvin and his wife are also foster parents.

Kristy Durso 19:49

Oh, I love that. That's incredible. We did not, we didn't even know.

Kelvin Crosby 19:52

No, we didn't talk about that, but I I I honestly it's it's

Kristy Durso 19:57

it's one of the most beautiful messes you will ever have.

Kelvin Crosby 20:00

Oh, yeah.

The Accessibility Lab And A New Frame

Chris Maher 20:01

We're gonna transition a little bit here because part of the reason we're all together in this room having this conversation is because we're all actually in West Virginia this week at the Accessibility Lab, which is a partnership that Samaritan Partners developed with the Disability Opportunity Fund and the Schoolhouse Hotel, which the DOF owns and operates in in this wonderful, charming town, White Sulfur Springs, West Virginia. And we are doing an innovation showcase where we are doing some keynote fireside chats, but also having innovative companies that are building for accessibility specific to hospitality and travel will be presenting. And Kristy is one of our keynote speakers, and she and I are gonna be doing a fireside chat. But Kristy, why don't you tee up what you and I are gonna talk about when we do your keynote tomorrow?

Kristy Durso 20:48

Oh, I'm I'm so excited about this. Tomorrow we're going to change the way the audience thinks about both disability and accessibility. Those are two very separate topics, by the way. You know, disability is a human condition, accessibility is the solution to that condition in innovative ways. And so we're going to help the audience understand their own personal connection. And I'm gonna share a little bit about how how we do that with a story from tonight. Tonight I met one of the guests here who's going to be there in the audience tomorrow. And she told me, you know, it's one of those things you if you don't have it in your own family and you don't experience it yourself, it's it's difficult to relate to. And I said, okay, yeah, I agree with that. It's it's very true. You have to, if you want to know what Japan is like, you have to go to Japan. You have to read a book about Japan and you have to engage with Japanese people, or you're not going to understand it. But let me ask you a question Does anyone in your family wear glasses to correct their vision in order to be able to drive? And she goes, Oh, yeah, I do. So, okay, now I want you to imagine that you didn't have those. Just because your disability is easily accommodated and Socially accepted doesn't mean it's not a disability. We just figured out a long time ago that a lot of people need glasses in order to be able to function. And we made it something accessible and easy. Now, what if we did that for every disability? What if we changed uh the way we think about accessibility away from the idea that it's compliance and law and went from the meeting the bare minimum standard, which nobody shops at a company that says we do the bare minimum for you, but yet that's what we get advertised to us with we're ADA compliant. That literally says we meet the bare minimum. What if we change that mindset? And instead of going, we're gonna follow the law or we're gonna do this just because it's the right thing, we said we want to know what you're able to achieve if we fully accommodate your disability. What do you hope for? What do you dream about? What keeps you awake and going every day? And how can we meet the need to enable you to do that? And that's what the Innovative Lab is all about.

Chris Maher 23:05

Amen, sister. All right, so Kristy, before we get into our conversation, how can our listeners learn more about you and the work that you're doing?

Kristy Durso 23:14

You can follow me on social media. I'm pretty much on every platform. My Instagram handle is Kristy Goes, and uh you can also visit my website for my travel agency, KristyatIncredible Memories Travel.com.

Chris Maher 23:27

Fantastic.

Kelvin Crosby 23:29

Well, let's dive into Chris and Kristy's conversation. And so let's

Innovation Showcase - Chris and Kristy's Fireside Chat

Kelvin Crosby 23:34

do this. A quick pause into this today's investment and accessibility show. You're gonna hear a beeping noise in this audio. It's Kristy getting up onto the stage using a kind of a wheelchair lift to bring her onto it. So that's what that beeping noise is.

Chris Maher 23:50

So welcome everybody. My name is Chris Maher. I'm the founder and general partner at Samaritan Partners. Quick little background on the

Kristy Durso 24:00

I have been supposed to do something else. Sorry. Do you need me to pull the button?

Chris Maher 24:05

I got it. I got it. Now we're good. Okay. It's all good. It's all good.

Kristy Durso 24:14

Safety first.

Chris Maher 24:17

So again, Chris Maher, Samaritan Partners. Let me give you a quick little background on myself and then we'll get into our conversation here with my good friend Kristy. But Samaritan Partners is a public benefit venture capital fund, and our focus is the disability sector. So we only invest in early stage companies that are building for the disability community that are either building products, services, and assistive technologies or creating employment opportunities. My background is actually not investing, it actually comes from the operational background. I spent 25 years running companies. And then in parallel to that, for the last 23 years, my wife and I have raised two beautiful daughters, both of whom live with disabilities. My oldest daughter, who's 22, has a physical disability, and my youngest daughter, who's 20, has intellectual and developmental disabilities. And so for me, starting Samaritan Partners and the investment fund was all about bringing together two things that I'm very passionate about, one being early stage entrepreneurship, and the other helping people and specifically the disability community. And so a few things I would be remiss if I didn't thank a few people. Charlie, I'm sorry I'm gonna I'm gonna ditto some of your comments. But first and foremost, Charlie Hammerman, he is the visionary behind everything that is going on down here with the DOF and uh accepted my crazy idea about setting up an accessibility lab here about a year and a half ago. But Charlie, none of this happens without you. So thank you. Jenny, you are amazing. This day, as Charlie said, doesn't happen without her, all the behind all the behind the scene works, and then obviously Marsha and the team and the staff here at the hotel that have created this amazing couple of days for us. So thank you to everybody. Some accessibility. If you're interested in trying out some really cool innovation, there's a QR code on the screen. This is a company called SignSpeak. They have developed a language platform that can do real-time bi-directional ASL interpretation. So if you would like to experience that and just check it out, or if you would like captions or an ASL interpreter today, you can just hold your phone up to that QR code, press the link, it's gonna launch a web page, and what you're gonna receive on your personal device is an avatar that in real time will sign what we're all talking about today, and then underneath that there will be real-time captioning. Okay. Even if you don't typically use that accommodation, I encourage you to check it out because it's really cool. They unfortunately could not be here today, but they are a part of this whole ecosystem around the accessibility lab. That's a good segue into the accessibility lab. About a year and a half ago, Charlie and I have known each other for a few years. I I had the great fortune of being introduced to Charlie while I was developing my fund and getting it off the ground, and he was incredibly generous with some free advice and guidance and lots of introductions. But I approached him after I had gotten the fund off the ground and said, Hey, what you're doing down at the schoolhouse is amazing as it relates to accessibility. How'd you like to double down and let's let's turn the hotel into a living lab, into an operational living lab where we can test early stage innovation around accessibility and specific to hospitality and tourism and travel? And of course, you know what Charlie said. He's like, of course, let's do it. And then this spring, he got the great news about the grant opportunity, and he and it was his idea. He was like, hey, why don't we do a showcase, an event at the hotel, and highlight some of the innovations that we've brought into the hotel through the lab. And so that's what really brought us here today. So thank you all for coming. And our first guest is a dear friend of mine, and a special treat for you folks. I'm gonna embarrass her, Kristy Durso. I'm gonna read a little bio that I put together, and this is only like a quarter of what she does, but I'm just gonna read this for you to kind of set the stage for our conversation. So Kristy Durso is an internationally recognized accessibility advocate, speaker, and travel industry consultant and expert who is helping redefine what inclusive hospitality looks like. As the owner of Incredible Memories Travel, a full-time wheelchair user, an Army veteran, and the mother of three children with disabilities, Christy combines deep-lived experience with professional expertise to help destinations, hotels, and tourism organizations move from accessibility as an ADA compliance requirement to something that has it can become a competitive advantage. Through her work with Travelability and destinations around the world, she has become one of the leading voices advancing accessibility as both exceptional hospitality and very smart business. So, Kristy, thank you for joining us today.

Kristy Durso 28:42

Thank you so much for having me here. I'm so excited to get to be a part of this. And before we kind of dig in, I'm gonna give a quick visual description of myself for anybody who is blind or low vision in the room, like our friend Kelvin in the back. I am a white woman with hair that is still trying to be blonde sometimes. It's long and down today. I sit in a black wheelchair with and I'm wearing a pink and white dress that's kind of abstract, and I have on absolutely amazing shoes. They are hot pink with one with a great big bow on the back and one with a bow on the front. And I have the best dog in the world. His name is Gulliver. He's a white English cream golden retriever laying next to me.

Chris Maher 29:26

So thank you, Kristy. She's always she always has fabulous shoes. I've been around here for a number of years now, and she always has fabulous shoes. So when we were preparing for our fireside chat today, you talked about a story that I think is pretty powerful, and and we decided that's a great

Beyond Bare Minimum Accessibility

Chris Maher 29:44

way to kick this off. Because I think part of what we want to do today is try to get everybody in the right mindset and frame of mind and to be open about some of the stuff we're talking about today. So let's kick it off with that story.

Kristy Durso 29:54

Absolutely. This is one of my favorite stories because it really brings home the point of what people with disabilities are really like, which is just like you. You know, when we talk about the ADA, we kind of tend to have people put on their website, we're ADA compliant. Okay, thanks. You met the bare minimum for me. What next? So I had a conversation. I got the pleasure of working with Sandals and Beaches Resorts in the Caribbean for a couple of years, advising them on their accessibility. And they have a separate company called Island Roots that is their tour operator. So they do all of their tours throughout the Caribbean, you know, all the snorkeling and all the things that you get to do in the islands, other than just sit at the hotel. And one day he goes, you know, Kristy, we know what people like to do who don't have disabilities. They like to go snorkeling, they like rafting, they like seeing waterfalls and horsebacking back riding. What do we do for people with disabilities? I said, horseback riding and rafting and waterfalls and snorkeling. We like to do the same kinds of things as everybody else. We're really no different. We just need a way to do it. And that conversation really opened his eyes. And then he, we actually we had never met in person at that point. So he hadn't met me. Had he met me, he might not have asked the question to begin with. And we were at Sandal St. Vincent and we did this amazing race game. And I got to be on one of the teams. And I'm pretty sure those who didn't know me at the time were kind of like, you guys are gonna lose. You've got a wheelchair user trying to do this. And no, we did not. We came in second place by 10 seconds, and I was so mad because you had to stay with your team the entire time. So that meant being carried across the sand and then getting dressed in a wetsuit and all these really funny, silly tasks. And we had a great time doing it. And it did show that just because you're unable to walk, you're unable to see, you're unable to hear, it doesn't mean that you don't want to participate in life. You just need somebody to help you do it. That's all accessibility really is. It's a deliberate act to remove the barriers that prevents somebody from fully engaging in life.

Chris Maher 32:16

Love it. Well done. Amen. Exactly. Who said amen? I thank you for that. Thank you for sharing that. And you know, you not only talk to talk, but you walk the walk, right? So you're advising not only individuals and families on how to travel, have more accessible travel experiences, you're advising some of the largest corporations around the world, but you also back it up and do it yourself. And so we're gonna do a little exercise right now that you're gonna lead our audience through, which I think will be pretty powerful for them because you're you are a living example of where disability doesn't have to limit your experiences and your life journey. And I think in your case, it's actually opened opened you up and has enhanced that journey and that experience. So let's do this little exercise

The Wheelchair Adventure Challenge

Chris Maher 33:00

here.

Kristy Durso 33:00

Okay, this is one of my favorite games to play. It's really called Can I One Up You? So I'm gonna ask all of you who can to stand up. I can't, so you have to. And now you're going to sit down. I've been a wheelchair user now for seven years. So I'm going to say an activity that I have done as a wheelchair user. And if you have not done it, I'm going to invite you to sit down. And I know I've got some pretty stiff competition in the room because we talked, but I already know I'm going to win. So we'll see how well this goes. All right. So we're going to start really easy. We're in West Virginia, very country. So I think you might have done some of these activities. If you've never gone fishing, sit down. If you awesome, I figured we might have a few fishermen out here. If you've never ridden a horse, sit down. Oh, we lost a couple. We're in West Virginia. I'm a little surprised. All right. If you have never gone hiking, sit down. If you have never gone camping, sit down. See, I thought we'd start with some good West Virginia fun. All right, let's move on to a little bit more. If you've never built a sand castle on the beach, sit down. If you've never gone water skiing or knee boarding or wakeboarding, sit down. Oh, we lost a few there. If you have never gone parasailing, sit down. What? I'm a little surprised. We lost a lot of people to that one. We haven't even gotten to the good stuff, you guys. All right, whitewater rafting. We're gonna get it, pick it up here and go a little faster. Whitewater rafting, we've lost. All right, if you have never gone kayaking, sit down. In the ocean or lake, it doesn't matter. All right, now if you have never gone, paragliding sit down. If you've never gone in a helicopter sit down, we've still got a couple. And I know my friend up here, Cindy in the front, you've done all of this so far, right? Like we're on the same Cindy. It is Cindy, right? You've you're you're still in the game, right? Oh no, I lost Cindy already. All right, she's done a lot of these things. Oh, that's right. You've never okay. So now sit down if you've never gone skydiving. I didn't even get to flying a plane and everybody's already sitting. So let me ask you, what exactly is a disability? Is it really about the part of my body that doesn't work? No, no, not at all. It doesn't take away my zeal for life, it doesn't take away my adventurous spirit or my desire to, you know, see how far I can push the envelope before something bad happens. No, it just means that in order for me to do the things that I want to do, the things that I'm capable of, the things that I want to dream about, I need an accommodation. I need somebody willing to get out there and help me figure out a way to make the impossible possible.

Chris Maher 36:04

Bravo. Thank you.

Disability Market Numbers That Matter

Chris Maher 36:09

So we're gonna shift a little bit and get into a topic that I call let's get into the numbers. And I'm gonna start off because at the end of the day, we we have to show that all the stuff that we're talking about here and what Charlie and the team have built, at the end of the day, it's about good business, right? And so let's start at a high level in terms of the numbers. I was sitting at a table last night during the the cocktail and dinner hour, and and I heard someone make a comment about disability being a niche market. I'm gonna tell you a little secret. It is not a niche market, it is a gigantic opportunity. That's why I'm in so that's my sole focus on my investing is the disability market. Let me just run through some of the numbers at a high level and then Kristy is gonna bring it down to travel. So the disability community globally is 1.8 billion with a B people. That's one in six uh people globally, it's one in four adults in the U.S. If that community was a nation, a country, it would be the largest country on the planet. That community is gonna double in the next 25 years to over three and a half billion people. Let's talk about money. The spending power of that community is in the neighborhood of seven to eight trillion with the T dollars. And then when you include their family, friends, and caregivers, that number just about doubles. If you looked at that as an economy, it would be the third largest economy in the world. Okay. These are big opportunities. If I if I had said to you, hey, I'm thinking of investing in a market, and I didn't start off by saying disability and just describe those numbers to you, you probably would be like, sign me up, I want to invest there too, right? But that's only part of the story. We also have to talk about the aging population and caregivers, right? Because those are very closely connected to the disabled community. By 2030, we are gonna have 73 million people in our country that are 65 or older, the baby boom generation. Okay. Today we have 63, and that's just the U.S. That's not a global number, that's just in the U.S. That's one that will be one in five people in the U.S. will be 65 or older. We have 63 million caregivers in the US today. Okay. How many of you are caregivers? I'm guessing all the hands in the room are gonna go up. Here's a remarkable statistic about the caregiver community. That 63 million people on an annual basis provide upwards of a trillion dollars of free caregiving to family and friends and loved ones. Okay. That's the totality of the market that we're looking at. And so there is a massive opportunity for investment. We don't have enough of it. I think historically the disabled community has largely been supported by charities and nonprofits and local and federal government. And thank you so much. Those organizations have been amazing. But we need private capital to come into this sector of the market to help elevate the community to where it really needs to get to. So that's the macro high-level numbers. Let's now bring it down to travel and hospitality.

Accessible Travel Spend And Group Impact

Kristy Durso 39:16

Absolutely. You know, these numbers really are quite staggering. I own a travel agency and I do on my own with everything else, I do about a million dollars in sales for disabled travel a year. And that's just me. There's another company called Fora. They have invested in accessible travel. They did $75 million in travel for disability travel alone. Open Doors did a study a few years ago and they came up with the number of $58.7 billion was spent on accessible travel in a two-year period. And I want you to consider a couple things. The airlines break 27 wheelchairs a day. People with autism are afraid to go out in public because they're afraid of the judgment. So the portion of people traveling is a small percentage of the people with disabilities. Not everybody with a disability travels. There's one study that says something like 80% of people who have a family member with autism don't travel at all, but they would travel if they knew that they would be accepted. People with wheelchairs avoid flying, and yet we still have a gargantuan number of wheelchairs that are breaking every day on planes. These are the numbers. We spend 30% more on our travel than a typical family. So if you spend $3,000 on a trip, I am spending significantly more. And that is not including because we nobody tracks it, because for some reason we forget that people with disabilities spend money and are part of our communities. And as we're tracking everything else, hair color, eye color, married, single, age, whether or not you read a book this year or you wanted to climb a mountain, we track everything, but we don't track disabilities. So the only spend we know is probably an inaccurate number tracking just the hotel. We're not counting the medical equipment. We're not looking at how many meals we ordered in or what restaurant we went to because it was accessible. We're not even counting those numbers. I live in Colorado. We have over a dozen adaptive rec programs for skiing in the state, and not one of them is engaged with their local tourism board to track those numbers across. Like they know how much they spend, but nobody's tracking how much the spend is in the hotels and the restaurants and the souvenirs and the gifts that we're buying as well. So when we talk about these numbers, they're a very inaccurate, low reflection of disability spend. And I think the other thing that we forget is we're talking about the disabled person. I'm married and I have three children. My husband is not disabled. So when we travel, we reflect more than that 27%, because that's the actual CDC number. 27% of American adults are diagnosed with a disability. Not 27% of Americans need accommodations. 27% are diagnosed with a recognized disability. There are a lot of people who deny their disability, they deny that they need it, but then they need a walker, they need a scooter, they need something to assist them as well. And then we don't travel alone. When I travel for work, I do. And we travel alone. But when I travel for fun, when I travel with my family, it's 25 people. So if I want to do an activity and I can't do it because the business hasn't made the effort to figure out how to make it possible for me, they're not losing my $200 ticket. They're losing the ticket of 25 people who are no longer going to do that activity because we came as a group and we want to participate as a group. When a business loses money because they didn't invest in accessibility, it's not the value of the person with a disability they lose. That's only one part of a very large story. They lose everybody that is associated with that person. That group is no longer doing that activity. My family is no longer doing the Segway tour because they haven't figured out how to let me do it. My family is no longer doing a bike ride because there's no way for me to participate. My family, Kelvin's family, is not going to the dark sky site because they have no way for somebody blind or low vision to experience the stars. But all of that is possible. I have a device down there that allows me to do all of that. There's a dark sky site in Nevada that is now bringing in 3D maps of the constellations to enable people to feel the stars and feel the constellation. And experience them in a new way. The innovation that we come up with in the accessibility world has the potential to change businesses.

Chris Maher 44:09

I agree. Well said. I I think that what I'm encouraged about within the travel sector is I think organizations and businesses, they're starting to get it. And a lot of it has to do with the statistic you said is that people with disabilities, they like to travel as much as people without. And when they travel, they travel with friends, family, and caregivers. And so if you're a business and you're just focused on the one in four people in the US with a disability, I don't know why you'd want to exclude 25% of your customer base, but you're not, because if you exclude that person, that one in four, it's really probably three in four or more. So now you're up to 75 plus percent of your customer base that you're alienating. That that's not good business for anybody, right? So thank you. Before we wrap up and you give your final thought, questions.

Why Guests Pay More And Return

Chris Maher 44:55

We've got a few minutes. Nobody. There we go.

Kristy Durso 45:06

Do we have a mic?

Chris Maher 45:07

I'll repeat the question. So the question is Kristy had said that the people with disabilities and the people they travel with spend more than the general population. Could she elaborate on that?

Kristy Durso 45:19

Absolutely. We like convenience. You know, if I'm looking at two hotels and one has a valet service and one does not, I'm choosing the valet service because it makes it easier for me to get my luggage out. It makes it easier for me to do all the things. We're paying the extra money for a business that is going to meet our needs. And that's really all it is. We're willing to invest in businesses that are going to take better care of us. A great example of that is Beaches Resort in the Caribbean. Families with children with autism are going to look at two hotels in the Caribbean, and most of them have a starting price, and then Beaches starting price is, you know, significantly higher. And people will go to Beaches because they are a certified autism center instead of going to the other hotel because they know that they've invested in caring for that community. Another great example is Walt Disney World. I have, we've gone to Walt Disney World for years, and one of the reasons they don't even have a dedicated program. But what they have learned is that exceptional hospitality helps families with disabilities feel welcome and included in their world. And when we feel welcome and included, we're going to spend more. Think about if you had a fair. When a family with a disability, whether if it's autism or a neurodivergency, or perhaps it's somebody who needs a changing table, goes to a fair, they budget two hours because that's what they can afford to spend there. Before they either have to leave before they need a sensory cooldown, or they have to leave because they need to change their individual who needs a changing table and there's no adult size adult-sized changing table there. If the community invested in a space for a sensory tent, which is very simple and very cost-effective to do, and invested in maybe you don't have an adult-sized changing table unit, but you can find somebody with an adjustable height massage table and set up a tent to enable that family to change there. That family now gets the decision to stay not two hours, but to stay the full day. And because those opportunities tend to be more rare for us, we're far more willing to spend our dollars at a place that is going to invest in that. If you have a, if you are blind or low vision, or if you wear glasses, if you're getting old like me, and you can no longer read the menu and you have two restaurants with nearly identical menus, this one is higher priced, but their menus are easier to read. Which one are you picking? I'm picking the one where I don't have to squint, take a picture, enlarge it. I'm going to the one that made it easier for me, even if it costs more.

Chris Maher 48:12

Thank you. Another little statistic, and we talked about this, and then we're going to wrap up here because we're getting against our time. Those customers, people with disabilities and the people they travel with, they not only spend more, but they come back more often.

Kristy Durso 48:27

Yes, right.

Chris Maher 48:27

They are incredibly loyal. If you provide that fantastic customer experience, they spend more, they come back more often. And then the other thing they do, they tell their friends. And that's the best, most powerful form of advertising is good old-fashioned word-of-mouth marketing. So this is a customer segment that if you're ignoring it, do it at your own peril. Okay. And they stay longer.

Kristy Durso 48:50

Yes.

Chris Maher 48:51

Christy, thank you so much. You are the best, my friend.

Kristy Durso 48:53

Thank you for having me.

Final Takeaways And How To Support

Kelvin Crosby 48:55

That wraps up Investing in Accessibility, as I always say. Go live beyond your challenges And I'll see you next time. 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.