Country : United States

Organization: The Rolling Rains Report

Year the initiative began: 2003

Project Website: www.RollingRains.com

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Geotourism Challenge Addressed by Entrant:

Quality of tourist experience and educational benefit to tourists, Quality of benefit to residents for the destination, Quality of tourism management by destination leadership, Quality of stewardship of the destination

Organization size:

Small (1 to 100 employees)

Indicate sector in which you principally work:
Tourism-related business

Primary field of activity:

• Living culture
• Destination aesthetics
• Education
• General destination stewardship/management
• Other

What is the goal of your innovation? Please describe in one sentence the kind of impact, change, or reform your approach is intended to achieve.

Make the tourism industry a sustained partner in the aspirations, culture, and rights of the disability community by educating it on how different ways of "being in a body" affect "sense of place."

Please write an overview of your project. Include how your approach supports or embodies geotourism or destination stewardship. This text will appear when people scroll over the icon for your entry on the map located on the competition homepage.

Who travels is as important as where.
Human experience of the “power” of place depends on the quality of attention and the character of interaction (both physical and social.) Responsible Tourism sets out guidelines for the proper intention toward place. Geotourism sets out guidelines for the proper sustenance and enhancement of place. The Global Sustainability Criteria for Tourism sets out guidelines for the proper development of place. Inclusive Tourism sets out to alert all three that understanding “who” experiences place is essential to creating just and sustainable tourism. It does so by giving voice to the quality of tourist experience from a group who have historically been denied access to tourism - people with disabilities.
The Rolling Rains Report uses best practices from Universal Design to improve the quality of tourism management (Inclusive Tourism) and its impact on the destination (Inclusive Destination Development). We believe that Green Design embodies environmental sustainability ; Universal Design closes the circle by providing the social sustainability of inclusion.
This project is a product of disability culture - a culture shaped by “ways of being in a body,” and thus ways of being in and experiencing a place. These often fall outside what is considered “normal.” It is a culture to be preserved & enhanced, existing in all destinations. It brings completely unique insights on place to share with the industry. Inclusive Tourism’s core tools (Universal Design and the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities or "CRPD") embody the political aspirations of disability culture. Universal Design was forged from the Disability Rights Movement. This project uses it to prioritize benefit to people with disabilities as travelers, potential travel industry professionals, and destination residents.

Explain in detail why your approach is innovative.

This project scales sustainable development projects piloted in Asia, Africa, and the Americas. No one but those who experience the world through the lens of disability can accomplish this project. In political terms the project makes concrete the Disability Rights motto, "Nothing about us without us." It implants local collaboratives, directed by people with disabilities, to provide tourism product consultation, infrastructure design, and destination development services to the tourism and hospitality industry. It melds the profit motive of industry with the pent-up demand for travel opportunities among people with disabilities through a series of projects grounded in the local disability community but linked globally through electronic communications, publishing, and conferences. The longterm goal is to establish Centers of Excellence that provide access and tourism opportunity audits as well as tourism policy analysis and strategic development leading to contracts in: Tour package design; Familiarization tours (fams); Infrastructure design, Sourcing, & construction using Universal Design (http://tinyurl.com/3atjkq); Training on people with disabilities as a market - as customers & employees; A multi-lingual online resource documenting & advocating for sustainable Universal Design best practices in economic development. People with disabilities of the USA alone spend $13.6 billion annually on travel. One of the world’s largest industries, tourism, can create lasting social change for one of the world’s fastest growing underserved populations, people with disabilities - including seniors.

What is the origin of your innovation? Tell the Changemakers and media communities what prompted you to start this initiative.

This is an experiment in social inclusion involving the tourism industry. It reflects the disability community's desire - and financial means - to travel freely and participate fully in the global community.
I have been paralyzed since October 12, 1972. In historical terms that means I am of the first generation of the Disability Rights Movement. As such I created the first Disabled Students Commission at the University of Washington assisting on disability issues at several universities afterward. My peers have gone on to be disability rights leaders in the US, their own countries, and in organizations like the World Bank.
With this project we are regrouping and organizing for inclusion on a global scale.
This idea came to me in a conversation with my wife during an anniversary trip as we looked ahead to issues we would face in the decades ahead. For example, no one knows how quadriplegics age. We have always died too soon to provide reliable data. Now people with disabilities are aging in large numbers and, as Boomer peers join us, there is a resurgence in effort to address unfinished issues. We are not letting up on our pressure to fight discrimination - and we want to travel. So I set out to be the English-speaking expert on this topic for our community. This project is the result of encouragement to take the think tank and innovation incubator approach of www.RollingRains.com and morph it into local projects.
Demand from industry, government, and disability organizations around the world has been surprisingly strong. We have worked with every continent and far-flung islands.
A current project in Mexico has taken on priority in light of the economically devastating effects of the fear of the flu. Proponents of Inclusive Tourism in Mexico have invited us to synthesize successes from projects in Cancun, Puerto Vallarta, and Ciudad del Carmen in order to build a national network.

Please provide a personal bio. Note this may be used in Changemakers' marketing material.

Dr. Scott Rains writes daily on travel and issues in the tourism industry of interest to people with disabilities. His work appears online at RollingRains.com. Rains’ articles have also appeared in Venture, New Mobility, Emerging Horizons, Contours, Success & Ability, Design for All India, Accessible Portugal, Audacity, Travel and Transitions, eTur Brazil, Co-Walking Korea, Turismo Polibea, Current Rehabilitation, [with]TV, and Disaboom among others. For his research on the topic of Universal Design and the travel and hospitality in the travel and hospitality industry he was appointed as Resident Scholar at the Center for Cultural Studies of the University of California Santa Cruz (2004-05)

Describe some unique tourist experiences that your approach provides. Be specific; give illustrative examples.

Let me turn the tables and provide an answer that will fail to satisfy many. Yet by choosing it we illustrate our core insight on exclusion.
Victoria at Galludet College, author of this VLOG, writes, "...my summer job [was] as a tour guide with Parks Canada. I go on to encourage other Deaf Canadian youth to try and apply for jobs with Parks Canada (Young Canada Works)."
In this video she recounts her unique experience in excellently articulated American Sign Language (ASL).
However, if you don't speak ASL you experience what faces the 500 million people on earth with disabilities - exclusion.
At some level beyond language you realize that miss out on her sense of place - a sense of place experienced directly and through meaningful interaction with others.
Without the ability to enter into Deaf Culture how do destination managers, policy makers, residents of or tourism workers at the destination know the "power of place" that Victoria has perceived?
If not grasped how can it be preserved? Enhanced?
The impoverishment radiates in every direction - tourist, tourism professional, destination resident, even the place itself."

(n.b.: This video illustrates our approach - full inclusion of people with disabilities in tourism - but is not our project.)

What types of partnerships or professional development would be most beneficial in spreading your innovation?

All Geotourism Challenge participants can partner with this project by reflecting on the following:
Geotourism and Inclusion: Questions for Geotourism Challenge Participants.

In addition we:

• Seek content, logistics, and funding partners for various conferences on Inclusive Tourism scheduled from 2009 - 2011
• Will work with travel, lifestyle, regional or other publications, tv, film, or radio to implant this practice around the world.
• Will organize conferences, familiarization tours, design opportunity audits, academic or journalistic research of a region's tourism product & potential.
• Invite partners interested in sport and development that positively impacts our community of people with disabilities in our projects with FIIFA 2010 World Cup (South Africa), 2014 World Cup (Brazil), 2010 Winter Games (BC Canada)

Describe the degree of success you have had to date. How do you measure, both quantitatively and qualitatively, the impact on sustainability or enhancement of local culture, environment, heritage, or aesthetics? How has it transformed or contributed to the power of place or demonstrated the sustainability of tourism? How does your approach minimize negative impacts?


The approach has been moderately successful since 2003 generating 56 articles, 12 print and 11 radio & television interviews, two books, one special issue of an academic journal, and a daily blog on travel, disability, and Universal Design (begun January 1, 2004). Participation in 7 national or international conferences on Inclusive Tourism during that time included travel, research, and consulting in Australia, Brazil, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, and the US. Because this phase of the project has been preparatory, coalition-building, and conceptual rather than location-based most impacts on local culture, environment, heritage, or aesthetics are largely the accomplishments of our partners. We have been satisfied to be a think tank, innovation incubator, and best-practices disseminator for the industry to impact disability culture as a whole while overseeing market growth and industry practice globally rather than locally. To the extent that we have strengthened the cultural and economic sustainability of our partners we have contributed to their local successes. Perhaps they will chose to tell the stories of their local success and strategies in the Comment section below.

In what ways are local residents actively involved in your work, including participation and community input? How has the community responded to or benefited from your approach?


This project brings together local disabled people's organizations, governmental tourism authorities, and the tourism industry by providing all with common language, vision, tools, and priorities. At the national level we have participated in or organized conferences on Inclusive Tourism in Brazil, and Japan (2004), Australia and Taiwan (2005), the US, Korea, and Thailand (2007) and Italy (2009). Mexico is under consideration for late 2009.. We have published in English, Spanish, Portuguese, and Japanese. Articles have been written for DPOs in Sri Lanka, India, Mexico, Brazil and the EU. Book projects are under negotiation. Collaborations creating new tourism products or travelers with disabilities are in process in Costa Rica, Thailand, South Africa, and Canada.

How does your program promote traveler enthusiasm, satisfaction, and engagement with the locale?


This program works with local disabled people's organizations (DPOs) to assure accuracy of destination information, legitimacy of development priorities, and authenticity in marketing in Australia, South and SE Asia, the EU, North, and South America.
Research shows that travelers with disabilities rely on word-of-mouth recommendations at a slightly higher rate than other travel sectors (ODO 2005). We stay slightly longer, often bring one or two people with us, and spend slightly more (Darcy 1998). There is an explosive pent-up demand for travel that experts estimate would double our travel if destinations were made accessible (ODO 2007). People with disabilities are hungry for engagement.

Describe how your work helps travelers and local residents better understand the value of the area's cultural and natural heritage, and educates them on local environmental issues.


Physical access to previously inaccessible cultural and natural riches is often the first step in true cultural literacy and green values. The interaction of local and foreign people with disabilities inevitably awakens reflection by each on their personal experiences of inclusion and exclusion, awareness and evaluation of their own culture, and exposure to undiscovered shared aspects of disability culture such as resiliency, interdependency, resistance, humor, and artistic expression. The presence of people with disabilities as unashamed social actors such as tourists with economic means is still a socially disruptive and artistically energizing event in many parts of the world.

How is your initiative currently financed? If available, provide information on your finances and organization that could help others. Please list: Annual budget, annual revenue generated, size of part-time, full-time and volunteer staff.


From Scott Portraits

This initiative is currently financed entirely by the donated labor and (precarious) resources of the founder.

Is your initiative financially and organizationally sustainable? If not, what is required to make it so? Is there a potential demand for your innovation?


In its current phase it is financially sustainable through low-overhead.
Communications via a public blog, a private Web 2.0 innovation incubator (Tour Watch), Twitter, Facebook, and numerous articles and interviews keep costs down and free technology usage high. Labor is donated.
Investment is required to launch a growth phase that will establish Centers of Excellence in Inclusive Tourism in various locations. The spike in demand for research and consultation on Inclusive Tourism from destinations and the tourism industry around the world was the impetus for this new phase.
Invitations for on-site assistance as of January 2009 included: South Africa, Brazil, Argentina,Italy, Singapore Barbados, Greece, India and the US. To date South Africa and Italy have been fulfilled. An inquiry from Mozambique i and a research partnership with Australia are pending

What are the main barriers you encounter in managing, implementing, or replicating your innovation? What barriers keep your program from having greater impact?


As a project managed by a single person it has reached its growth limit. It can have incrementally increased impact through endurance over time as the message disseminates and its reputation grows but to have greater impact it must have the resources to retain a diverse group of committed individuals who are closer to strategic destinations and are influencing the day-to-day practice of government and the tourism industry. Interest in the goals of this project are not lacking. It is the ability to scale up to a level equal to the demand that is needed.

What is your plan to expand or further develop your approach? Please indicate where/how you would like to grow or enhance your innovation, or have others do so.


The ideal next step in expansion would include at least one rural and one urban setting. The expansion would integrate the key tourism stakeholders around an interest in the disability community as customers, employees, suppliers, and consultants. Evaluation would use a Triple Bottom Line approach.
We are engaged with Mexico as mentioned previously.Recently Barbados has approached us because they like our approach which blurs the lines between infrastructure accessibility projects for citizens with disabilities and those designed for (and potentially financed by the income generated from) tourists with disabilities. Demonstrating the economic viability of (re)designing these locations as destinations-of-choice for travelers with disabilities is a key strategy of expansion - examples of inclusion enriching culture.
Publishing business case studies on this approach is one of our goals.

Contact Information
Dr. Scott Rains
Founder
The Rolling Rains Report
San Jose, CA
srains@oco.net

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