The GBTA Foundation, the charitable arm of the Global Business Travel Association (GBTA), has launched the GBTA Accessibility Toolkit, a guide to help travel managers and buyers create more accessible policies and practices in their business travel programs.
The toolkit, according to an announcement, includes recommendations based on industry expertise and best practices around critical areas of consideration including travel policy, traveler communication, supplier engagement and point-of-sale. The toolkit addresses key challenges in accessible business travel and how the industry can collaborate more effectively to deliver for those with accessibility needs.
For many business travelers, according to the announcement, accessibility requirements may also be hidden, such as chronic pain, neurodiversity and mental health, and 70% of travel managers don’t know or can’t estimate how many of their travelers have accessibility requirements. Adding to the challenge is the business travel industry’s lack of universal accessibility standards, leaving many companies to address the issue in an ad hoc manner.
Delphine Millot, managing director of the GBTA Foundation, said addressing accessibility challenges needs to be a priority for the business travel industry, as there is still a significant gap in understanding business traveler differences and how these translate into various needs. The toolkit, she said, “is designed to help companies address this issue, in turn enhancing the business traveler experience, maximizing the ROI of business travel, and supporting the delivery of travel services from across the supplier landscape.”
The toolkit contains seven modules on industry best practices around travel policy, traveler communication, supplier engagement and point-of-sale, key challenges and opportunities in accessible business travel, a glossary of terms, and industry case studies.
As part of the toolkit, the foundation has issued five calls to action for an accessible business travel industry:
- Suppliers and travel managers should conduct an accessibility self-assessment to benchmark where programs can improve.
- Travel managers should strengthen systems to transparently collect and confidentially store traveler accessibility information.
- Travel managers should respond to travelers who disclose their accessibility requirements with a proactive and transparent support structure.
- Travel managers or buyers should send a demand signal for more accessible facilities and services through the procurement and supplier evaluation process.
- The business travel industry should collaborate on a universal coding system that conveys more granular accessibility information that travelers commonly need.
