November 1999

Agency finds niche in travel for the disabled

By ADAM KATZ-STONE
CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Travel:
Reprinted by Permission from the Baltimore Business Journal: GROWTH STRATEGIES
Gaining Access

Tim Daly lives with Frederiech's ataxia, an inherited neuromuscular disorder that impairs his motor skills. During the many years that he sold computer software around the nation, he learned first-hand just how hard it can be for a person with physical disabilities to travel.

"I would make a motel reservation, and they would give away the only handicapped room they had. They would tell me I had to go up stairs, but I can't do stairs. I would go to conferences or restaurants where the handicapped accessible entrance was through the alley or the kitchen," said the 53-year-old Daly, who since age 21 has had to use a walker to get around.

A few years back, Daly decided to do something about this sorry state of affairs - to improve travel opportunities not just for himself but for others in his situation. Two years ago he incorporated Access Travel Inc., and his business has grown steadily since then.

Potential market

Experts say there is a large -and still untapped - market for Daly's services. There are some 54 million Americans with disabilities, and for many of these people travel can be an ordeal.

"For people who have mobility impairments, rest rooms need to be a certain size, and there needs to be ramp access. For people with visibility impairments, written information needs to be available in alternative formats. For people who are deaf, the emergency signals in a hotel need to have a light flasher and not just an auditory signal,' said Kathleen Mispagel, an accessibility specialist with the National Center on Accessibility, a joint project of Indiana University and the National Parks Service.

As a result of all these variables, she said, a travel agent who specializes in issues surrounding disability can play a crucial role - especially an agent like Daly, who has faced many of these problems in his own life. Mere are a lot of questions people with disabilities need to ask as they travel and this is somebody who has been out there and done that,' Mispagel said. "So where you might not think to ask those questions for yourself, perhaps he has already asked those questions for you, or on his own behalf."

Moreover, the ordinary travel agent generally might not have a sufficient grasp of these issues to be much help. "The majority of 'regular' travel agents do not know what questions to ask," said Patricia Louise Smither, an executive with the Oakland, Calif.- based nonprofit organization Access for Disabled Americans. 'Unless they are a travel agent specializing in disabled travel, they do not know what problems a disabled person will face."

Daly said that in doing his preliminary research, he found that some 39 million Americans with disabilities say they will not travel because it is too much trouble.

"Most of them want to travel; they only say they won't because of all the hassles," Daly said. "My pitch is that because I have been there, I can remove those hassles. I understand it first hand."

Tapping In

As any small-business owner knows, however, it is one thing to have strong market demand for a product and quite another thing to be able to tap into that demand.

Daly said that tapping into the travel-with-disabilities market has required a slow and labor-intensive effort And cash, too.

To get his business off the ground, Daly, won an $18,000 'Reaching Independence through Self-Employment' grant from the state's Department of Rehabilitative Services. He has used the money to travel extensively, attending disability-related conferences and conventions where he markets his services directly to potential clients.

To win the grant, Daly had to assemble a top-notch business plan. For this he took travel courses at Howard County Community College and interviewed several dozen travel agents.

He said his interviews proved especially helpful, since those people tended to be geographically distant and did not see him as a potential competitor.

"People would just bare their souls for me, and if they couldn't answer a question I asked they would point me to someone who could,' he said. "I could get on the Internet and talk to people in California, and they were unbelievably open. It was just unreal."

Daly also got help from Ellin Dize, a business consultant in federally funded Small Business Development Center in Baltimore. Dize said Daly appears to have what it takes to parlay his good idea into a viable small business.

"In developing his business plan, I instructed him to gather statistics: How many handicapped people are out there? What is the potential market? And what percentage of that market does he intend to develop for his target market?" she said.

As a result Daly's business plan was so rock solid that the Department of Rehabilitative Services waived a 13-week business course normally required of all its grant recipients, Dize said.

So far, Daly has succeeded in implementing that plan. He has turned his garage into a home office. He has forged an alliance with Eyre Tour and Travel Inc. in Gleneig and uses that firm's computers to book airline tickets and motels. He also has hired three part-time staffers.

As for long-term goals, Dalys are modest. For the time being, his chief business objective is to get off of government aid.

"My goal is to generate enough income that I can no longer have to accept disability payments, he said. 'If you had told me a few years ago that I would be here today, I probably would have laughed,' he said.

Adam Katz--Stone is a contributing writer in Annapolis.

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