{"id":238581,"date":"2017-09-13T21:53:06","date_gmt":"2017-09-13T21:53:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/facingdisability.com\/blog\/?p=238581"},"modified":"2017-09-28T20:49:50","modified_gmt":"2017-09-28T20:49:50","slug":"accomable-creates-vacation-rental-market-people-disabilities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/facingdisability.com\/blog\/accomable-creates-vacation-rental-market-people-disabilities","title":{"rendered":"Accomable creates vacation-rental market for people with disabilities"},"content":{"rendered":"

Accomable, a pioneering global platform for finding adapted hotels and vacation rentals for people with disabilities, is on a mission to enable anyone to go anywhere. The innovative service, coined the \u201cAirbnb\u201d for travelers with disabilities, was recently highlighted in the San Francisco Chronicle <\/em>article<\/a> below.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>When Alex Ghenis moved into his Berkeley apartment, he spent thousands of dollars remodeling to accommodate his wheelchair, adding a roll-in shower, accessible shower fixtures, and hardwood floors in the living room and bedroom. In the bedroom, he set up a Hoyer Lift for transferring between his wheelchair and the bed. The landlord installed an automatic door opener at the building entrance.<\/p>\n

\u201cHere I am with all these resources,\u201d said Ghenis, 29, who has used a wheelchair since a spinal cord injury 13 years ago. \u201cWhen I travel, it would be great to stay in an apartment that is just as accessible \u2014 and to open up my place for other people.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the goal of Accomable, an Airbnb-style marketplace for short-term rentals for people with disabilities. Ghenis has listed his place on Accomable to rent to other wheelchair users when he\u2019s out of town. In turn, he\u2019ll also use the site to seek out places to stay in other cities.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Click to watch Kim Eberhardt Muir, MS, discuss traveling with a disability.<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cIt looks like a fantastic resource,\u201d said Ghenis, who travels for his work as a policy and research specialist at the World Institute on Disability. \u201cIt would be good for my pocketbook if someone rents (my place) when I\u2019m out and about.\u201d<\/p>\n

Accomable CEO and co-founder Srin Madipalli, 31, who uses a wheelchair because of spinal muscular atrophy, was a corporate lawyer in London with a travel bug. In 2010, he took off on a six-month trek around Europe, Africa and Asia. While he loved seeing the world, finding a place to stay was often an ordeal.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was constantly turning up to hotels and finding out they weren\u2019t accessible, even if they had said they were,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

During the next few years he got an MBA at Oxford, learned coding and started a travel blog, Disability Horizons, with a friend. Feedback from blog readers made him realize how many people with disabilities had trouble finding suitable lodgings while traveling. That was the impetus for founding Accomable two years ago.<\/p>\n

Madipalli coded the website himself, and it grew organically. \u201cI curated all the first few listings myself; I\u2019d call up the owner and ask, \u2018Can I come stay?\u2019 and would work on coding while I was there,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He advertised on Twitter, Facebook and elsewhere for hosts whose places had features such as roll-in showers, hoists and electric beds; at least one bedroom and bathroom must have step-free access. \u201cSome hosts are disabled themselves; some have a disabled relative,\u201d he said. While wheelchair accessibility is a particularly large concern, it also caters to travelers who are blind or deaf, as well as the elderly. \u201cAccessibility can take many different forms,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Brittany Dejean\u2019s family used Accomable while traveling to Europe last summer. Her dad, who has quadriplegia, had not traveled abroad for years \u201cbecause of how inaccessible the travel industry is and how hard it is to get information,\u201d she said. But they trusted Accomable because it was clear that its founders had personal understanding and were committed to making sure all properties truly worked.<\/p>\n

They booked an accessible apartment in Madrid. \u201cThat was where my dad\u2019s soul lived; he loved it there so much and hadn\u2019t been in two decades,\u201d she said. \u201cIt was a phenomenal, life-changing trip that reopened this window of passion for travel that my dad had had to shut.\u201d<\/p>\n

As executive director of AbleThrive, a San Francisco nonprofit that provides resources for people with disabilities, Dejean is helping find hosts for Accomable.<\/p>\n

\u201cAccomable is truly trailblazing in its awareness of the market,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Most Accomable listings are for entire homes; there are also about 300 hotels. The initial cohort of hosts are in Europe, but Accomable is now making a push into the United States. Madipalli has been meeting with hosts in the Bay Area, along with venture capitalists. The company has about half a million dollars in initial funding.<\/p>\n

Its screening process is rigorous, and not all properties make it. Accomable asks hosts to send photos or videos of every accessible feature in their home to verify them. It has about 1,200 listings and 3,500 more are being vetted.<\/p>\n

As with other marketplaces, hosts set their own rates. Accomable takes a 10 percent cut.<\/p>\n

The increasing popularity of marketplaces like Airbnb, Uber and Lyft has concerned people with disabilities and their advocates, who have spent years fighting for the regulations that govern accessibility by the hotel and taxi industries. The Americans with Disabilities Act does not apply to owner-occupied lodgings with fewer than six units for rent. Lyft and Uber let riders request wheelchair-accessible vehicles, but in general have no rules about how many such vehicles are available.<\/p>\n

In June, a Rutgers study found<\/a> that people with disabilities were often rejected by Airbnb hosts, even when the hosts said their lodgings were wheelchair accessible.<\/p>\n

Airbnb said that the study was out of date, and that it\u2019s taking steps to improve accessibility, including new ways for hosts to describe accessibility features, host education materials and trained customer service. \u201cAirbnb has a permanent team of engineers, data scientists, researchers and designers whose sole purpose is to advance belonging and inclusion and to root out bias, including bias against people with disabilities,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n

Arun Sundararajan, a New York University business professor and author of the book \u201cThe Sharing Economy,\u201d generally believes in a laissez-faire attitude toward these new companies. But in the case of disability access, he thinks the government should step in if the companies don\u2019t do enough.<\/p>\n

\u201cRegulation is necessary when there\u2019s market failure, which means, if left to its own devices, the market under-provides something society needs,\u201d he said. \u201cTo me, the right response for Uber and Lyft would be to mandate a minimum fraction of vehicles in any given geographic area that are wheelchair accessible.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Airbnb, he said, it would be strategic for it to proactively invest in ensuring it has accessible listings, and verifying their claims itself, rather than relying on its reviews system to do so.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a serious issue that requires a new approach,\u201d he said. \u201cThere always will be a necessary role for government intervention to set standards and place minimums. This may require a creative new way to share responsibility between the (companies) and the government.\u201d<\/p>\n

Madipalli welcomes those much larger companies addressing the issue.<\/p>\n

Long term, his goal is for Accomable to be a one-stop shop for accessible travel. \u201cWe\u2019d be a marketplace for all these services \u2014 accommodations, specialty equipment, adaptive cars, insurance,\u201d he said. \u201cI want to encourage others that they can do things; that their disability shouldn\u2019t be a barrier.\u201d<\/p>\n

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