Traveleyes seeks trade partners to woo sighted solo travellers  

Traveleyes is seeking trade partners to recruit sighted solo travellers as it prepares to resume independent operations this September following a three-year partnership with HF Holidays.

 

The operator, which pairs blind and sighted travellers, aims to rebuild its portfolio to 70 destinations next year after seeing immediate sell-outs for newly released trips to Costa Rica, Morocco and Sri Lanka.

 

Founder Amar Latif said while the company has a large, loyal base of blind clients, its main growth constraint is attracting sighted companions, who receive up to a 50% discount on trip prices in exchange for describing destinations.

 

Latif urged high street agents and solo travel specialists to back the unique model.

 

“We have a lot of blind travellers who want to holiday, and our limiting factor is sighted travellers,” he said.

 

Traveleyes is offering trade partners training materials and discounted fam trips to learn guiding techniques.

 

Latif added that the company is currently expanding its eight-strong team, recruiting a customer and operations executive to help manage a rise in international bookings following “incredible publicity” thanks to being featured in the New York Times in May.

 

More: Traveleyes to resume full control of holidays in September

 

“We are building up our team, and it feels exciting, being an entrepreneur again,” said Latif.

 

“It was great working with HF Holidays and seeing their staff getting excited about travelling with blind people. I always get excited when able-bodied people see the joys of travelling in a different way.

 

“We are working on more trips now, because [our new ones] have proved so popular.”

 

He said the trips are a “great” opportunity for agents, adding: “Agents need to be aware that if there is a solo traveller wanting to do something with a purpose, something different, this is ideal, because if someone’s lost their partner, or the partner doesn’t want to travel, they get to travel with a group of people.

 

“If you are describing something and having more tactile sensory experience, the sighted person sees things in a different way too.”

Latif, who founded Traveleyes in 2004, said awareness about disability travel has been improving but noted: “We are seriously lagging behind with accessibility on websites – websites are still not accessible for blind people.”

He highlighted the positive work by search engine Skyscanner but estimated that only 5% of airline websites are accessible at the moment.

 

Touch-screens on aircraft and in hotel lifts is another frustration for sight-impaired travellers, he added.

 

“People need to think pragmatically about how they can open up the world to more people, and slight tweaking can really add to your bottom line,” he said.

 

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