107: Championing accessible tourism: Neha Arora, Founder, Planet Abled

Shownotes: As a podcast host I meet so many inspiring people - I recently met with Neha Arora, who quit her job after working for nearly a decade in the private sector to set up Planet Abled (2016) with a vision to make travel/tourism accessible and inclusive for people with disabilities. Today, Planet Abled has grown to become a destination developer and ecosystem enabler. Her business is rooted in authenticity, a gap in the market identified because of her lived experience. As a child she and parents (her mother is a wheel chair user and her father is blind) did not go on holidays or travel, she naively attributed it to not having enough money. Travelling with her parents when she started working opened her eyes to the reality - they chose not to travel due to the societal stigmas around disability and also inaccessibility at every stage of the travel journey. In this eye opening episode we spoke about the series of side hustles Neha had before Planet Abled, the Indian travel and tourism landscape (from an accessibility lens), societal prejudice, assumptions that people with disabilities do not work or have money, that it is ok for make decisions on their behalf, lack of vision by investors…….👇🏾👇🏾👇🏾👉🏾 Quitting her job and becoming an entrepreneur👉🏾 The need to mainstream accessible and inclusive travel, and not create a parallel industry👉🏾 Census data and the reality that people with disabilities are hidden in Indian society 👉🏾 The demand and actual numbers of people with disabilities travelling👉🏾 Awareness, attitudes and affordability - the three A’s that influence travel decision 👉🏾 The biggest challenges facing the industry👉🏾 Policy and legislation 👉🏾 What accessible and inclusive travel/tourism would look like in an ideal world. We also spoke about travel and tourism industry workforce training and sensitisation, the challenges she facing running her business, role models and what drives her. To listen to the episode head to Apple podcasts or any other podcasting platform. Episode Transcript:Sudha: Good afternoon, Neha. Thank you for making time to be a guest on The Elephant in The Room podcast today. Neha: Thank you so much Sudha for inviting me and I'm looking forward to our conversation. Sudha: Brilliant, To get started, let's start with a quick introduction. Tell us a bit about yourself. Neha: Well, I'm Neha Arora and I'm the founder of Planet Abled, which makes tourism accessible and inclusive for persons with disabilities and the elderly. And I started because of my own personal experiences, because I never travelled as a child. And my parents who are now in their seventies and eighties, they never travelled until a few years ago. So after I started earning, the first thing I did was to save some money and travel, only to be disappointed by the inaccessibility and the societal stigmas related to it.Neha: So we started off as a travel service provider and gradually grew up into a destination developer and an ecosystem enabler where we help businesses as well to become accessible and inclusive. Sudha: Okay, that's very interesting. So you've said a bit about what PlanetAbled is. So it's very difficult, I understand when you start on your professional journey to actually quit a good job...