Access More Areas

The song says there’s three steps to heaven, but what if you’re unable to take even those few steps to enjoy the heavenly coffee or food in that highly-recommended cafe?

Access More Areas

Or what if you’ve travelled half-way around the world on wheels only to find the bathroom in your luxury hotel-room wheelchair inaccessible? For many of us who enjoy access all areas on our travels, it’s easy to forget that for many of those wishing to visit with us some places remain out of bounds thanks to short-sighted or thoughtless design.

Big Steps For Change

When software engineer Matt McCann was visiting London in 2012, he chose a hotel that claimed to be accessible for his rollator. On arrival however, he found the only access to his hotel was up three steps, and the doorway to his bedroom was too narrow to gain entry.

Matt, our featured guest on the last Kickstart Your Business in our series, decided to fix the problem of travel for himself and others like him, by setting up Access Earth to provide up to the minute information and ratings on accessible services across the world. Launched earlier this year in Dublin and Chicago, Access Earth has already seen hundreds of venues and places of interest tagged and rated in the two cities.

Have App, Will Travel

Mick Clifford, our stand-in host on The Right Hook, marvelled that no-one else had seen the need and opportunity to serve this significant and often ignored group of visitors.

I suggested that as both a user of Access Earth and the entrepreneur behind it, Matt is uniquely placed to reach out to representative and advocacy groups, and appeal to their members to get rating the various venues in their local areas.

I also noted that the soul of hospitality is our ability to welcome in strangers and make them feel at ease, and a venue that opens its doors to all visitors is likely to enjoy significant advantage over those that don’t in terms of building customer loyalty.

Your Entry Here

How do you suggest that Matt make the business of travel access more areas for more and more of those travelling?

Listen back to Kickstart Your Business on Newstalk.com and tell us what you think? We’d love to hear from you.