1-week GSTC Accessible & Inclusive Travel Online Course

Dates: September 30 – October 6, 2024
Live Session Schedule: September 30th and October 3rd (120 mins/session) – from 12pm CEST (Central European Summer Time, UTC+2) / 6pm Singapore / 7pm Seoul / 8pm Sydney
Where: Online
Language: English

We highly recommend attending the live, virtual sessions. However, the sessions will be recorded and participants will be able to watch the recordings any time during the course period.

ABOUT THE COURSE

Accessible & Inclusive Travel Online Course

The Accessible and Inclusive Travel Course is designed to

• apprise participants of the size and potential of the accessible and inclusive travel market segment
• dispel myths regarding what people with disability and others with access needs want to do, and can and can’t do
• give a deeper insight into the make-up of this market segment
• boost confidence in catering to people with disability and access needs by helping you understand the needs of travellers with different functional and cognitive impairments, including senior travellers
• provide practical tips and guidance on how to better attract, serve and retain customers with access needs

Participants who complete the course will gain a greater understanding of how to provide accessible and inclusive experiences for people with disability and others with access needs, and thereby gain a competitive advantage, increase their market share and boost their revenue.

TRAINER

Martin Heng

Born in Birmingham, UK, Martin has a BA and MA in English literature from Cambridge University and an MA in Communications from RMIT University, Melbourne. He left England in 1987 and lived, worked and travelled around the world before migrating to Australia in 1997. He worked for Lonely Planet from 1999 to 2020 in numerous roles, including seven years as Editorial Manager.

A bicycle accident on his 20km commute to work in 2010 left him a quadriplegic. He was Lonely Planet’s Accessible Travel Manager & Editorial Adviser from 2013 to 2020, in which role he published a number of accessible travel titles, including the world’s largest collection of Accessible Travel Online Resources, which was cited as best practice by the UNWTO, and an accessible guide to Rio de Janeiro that was supplied to all athletes participating in the 2016 Paralympics. He also commissioned and co-wrote Accessible Melbourne, Accessible Brighton, Accessible Bristol, Accessible Edinburgh and Accessible Glasgow.[1]

Since 2014 he has become a regular speaker at travel conferences held by such global travel NGOs as UNWTO, WTTC, IATA and PATA. In 2021, he authored Tourism Access and Inclusion: Best Practice Guidelines for Tourism MSMEs for APEC, complemented by a series of three online workshops featuring many of the world’s accessible travel luminaries. In 2022, he authored the Accessible and Inclusive Host Handbook for the Australian Tourism Export Council, complemented by a series of training modules that he created and delivered.

For the last six years he has served as chair of the board of IDEAS, a NSW-based nonprofit providing information to and advocacy services for the disability communities throughout Australia. He was appointed to the Victorian Disability Advisory Council in October 2019, and reappointed in 2022 to advise the Victorian government on matters related to disability.

REGISTRATION DETAILS

Course Registration Fees

• US$ 265 per person (Non-member)
• US$ 235 per person (GSTC Member*)
• US$ 200 per person (For those who have taken / registered for the GSTC sustainable tourism course**): Please choose the «Add-on» option when registering for the course.

*For GSTC Organization members, the above member discount is available to all staff members and can be used for an unlimited number of times.

**The discount cannot be combined with the GSTC Member rate. If you have an add-on discount code, please select the ‘regular, non-member’ option, even if you are a GSTC member.

What’s Included

As part of your registration, you will receive training materials and access to the online training platform.

DISCOUNT OPTIONS

Group Discounts

If you would like to sign up as a group of 5 and more, please contact us (training@gstcouncil.org) for more details.

Need-Based Discounts

We offer a limited number of need-based discounts to current students and professionals who demonstrate genuine needs. To apply, please submit this application form.