Tui has rolled out training to 5,000 staff on how to service customers with disabilities as it revealed sales of assisted travel holidays are up year on year by 30%.
The company has also put together a team of 80 sales staff in its call centre to handle bookings for clients with accessible needs and is offering quiet areas in all its shops once a week for neurodiverse customers.
The moves follow partnerships with accessibility guide AccessAble, which has audited 300 units of accommodation for clients with accessible needs, and SignLive, which helps Tui agents communicate with deaf customers.
Speaking during Abta’s Travel Convention in Greece, Tui UK & Ireland managing director Neil Swanson (pictured) said the decision to provide more training and help customers with accessible needs had gone down well with staff and came as sales for the year to September for assisted holidays were up by a third on the previous year.
“They love it. One in seven people have an [accessible] issue. They can see our brand is supporting people; it is the right thing to do,” he said, but added: “There is a commercial angle to it.”
Swanson said that there were plans to expand the number of independently audited accommodation units.
“It’s a start. We will be looking to extend content; I don’t know what proportion we will get to,” he added.