crippling capitalism.

"Accessibility isn't just good hospitality - it's your key to a $60B market."

The promo image that accompanied this enticing headline features a modern-looking digital interface encouraging property owners to update their listings and tap into the seemingly endless money pit that is the accessible travel market. The message? Acknowledge that people with disabilities exist, and you're not only winning from the moral standpoint, but from a financial one, too.

We’re not here to analyze the origins of this $60 billion mirage (and it is indeed a mirage), and we’re also not here to call out any one specific company for using this mirage to their advantage either.

On some level, we at The World is Accessible can be blamed for similar. Some years ago, in a desperate attempt to get the attention of our city's Mayor and to encourage her to improve the accessibility of our city, we spoke of the financial advantages that could be bestowed upon the city if they took inclusive infrastructure more seriously. Spoiler alert: it didn’t work.

Why dedicate this week's post to this topic, then?

How is this strategy sustainable when a huge portion of the demographic that makes up the $60B doesn’t show up for these businesses?

Is relying on profit motives to build a more inclusive society not fundamentally flawed?

Shouldn’t the moral reasons for increasing accessibility stand far ahead of the financial ones?

Consider the following:

• Accessible isn’t always accessible. Disability isn’t unilateral, and thus, neither are access needs. What works for one person could be a total disaster for another.

• Purchasing power isn’t equal. Many people are excluded not only due to physical inaccessibility, but also financial inaccessibility. When you use data from developed countries as your only statistics to help develop an average, that $60B figure may not transfer to a concrete and objective reality.

• Adaptations cost money that few can and are willing to pay. The system makes business owners seek fast-paced, ever-increasing profit margins, meaning they are less likely to allocate funds for accessibility improvements. This is no heavy critique or judgement of character; it is merely the way business owners must proceed to survive in a capitalist matrix.

Taking all of these points into account, one may easily conclude that the route of financial gain is not so straightforward.

And it does create some morally self-serving investors; if you’ll allow us to regale an anecdote from our work with The World is Accessible, we’d like to share something that has happened on more than one occasion. There have been several accessible property owners reach out to us to ask about advertising their holiday homes on our website, only to then send us paragraph after paragraph, explaining why they think it’s absurd to have to pay for a marketing service (provided by a member of the disabled community, no less) because they’ve already spent so much money on their property renovations. It’s a bit like asking the factory workers to work for free because you were kind enough to not only build the damn factory, but put in a nice canteen for staff to use.

Maybe not.

Whether we like it or not, in the system we currently operate in, it is earnings first and ethics as an afterthought, or maybe never even thought.

If waving around a big $60 billion flag is what it takes to improve accessible options for those of us who need it, then maybe we have to suck it up and say: so be it.

But we should still be allowed to feel hurt that this is what it takes to make disabled people be seen. Put a dollar sign and a big number, and suddenly, companies care about your safety and comfort. And isn’t it quite fitting that the advert we referred to at the start of this post was spotted on LinkedIn? You know, the famous site where everybody is doing their best to promote and congratulate themselves in one big glorified circle jerk? How inclusive, right?

Interesting related reads:

Accessible Travel Costs: Is The Price Justified?