How Disability-Inclusive Business Travel Reflects Corporate DEI Maturity

According to the Global Business Travel Association worldwide spending on business travel is expected to reach an arresting figure of $1.8 trillion by 2027. It is a lucrative industry indeed and one which significantly underpins and knits together key components of the global economy.

However, for many workers with disabilities, business travel singularly fails to provide an enjoyable or accessible experience. This is often down to a combination of being inexorably entangled with the inherent complexities and inconsistencies of corporate DEI policies alongside deeply entrenched access barriers impacting the travel industry at large.

Back in 2022, accessible travel consultancy firm Accessio produced a report that showed that a large portion of business travelers (39%) reported access requirements that had a direct influence on their travel experience. At the same time, 70% of travel managers working for some of America’s major corporations stated that they were not in a position to estimate how many employees within their organization might have access requirements. More recently, this past summer, research undertaken by American Express Global Business Travel, a leading software and services company for travel and expenses revealed through a survey of 500 workers with disabilities in the U.K. that 50% of respondents have had to decline a job offer because they felt unable to fulfill travel requirements associated with the role. Sixty-five percent said that they could not travel on business due to their disability with an additional 63% expressing a belief that non-disabled colleagues progress faster in their careers because travel is more accessible for them.

During an email interview responding to the research Derek Moxam, Accessibility Advocate and Agent Coach at Amex GBT said, “Accessibility barriers during business travel are particularly challenging because they can disrupt our ability to meet professional obligations. While leisure travel disruption is annoying and inconvenient, there is more scope for flexibility and personalization. But business travel demands consistency and reliability. As professionals, we require seamless coordination between airlines, hotels and ground transportation to ensure we can perform our duties effectively and without interruption.”

The point on consistency is apt. Nowadays, and certainly, at large-scale organizations, business travel is booked directly by the employee through dedicated third-party platforms loosely overseen by in-house travel managers. Whether or not there will be any accessibility codes or tagging related to transport and accommodation within these platforms is somewhat hit-and-miss. An additional layer of complexity exists at an internal level within organizations with travel managers uncertain about the type of accessibility provisions and signposting to look out for due to a lack of knowledge concerning the disabilities of their employees. This often comes back to the complex issue of disability disclosure amongst staff members. Often, unless companies are proactively welcoming and overt about their disability-inclusive culture, staff may be reluctant to disclose a disability for fear of negative attitudes from coworkers and the impact it might have on career progression.

Earlier this year, in order to provide a blueprint for best practices, the Global Business Travel Association launched a business travel accessibility toolkit through its charitable arm the GBTA Foundation. Aimed at travel managers and buyers, the toolkit represents a collective endeavor involving collaboration between travel buyers, software vendors, airlines and hotels. It addresses several critical areas related to accessible business travel including travel policy, traveler communication, supplier engagement and point-of-sale.

The core intention as Delphine Millot, Managing Director of the GBTA Foundation and Senior Vice President for Sustainability and Advocacy at GBTA, explained in a recent interview is to ensure intentionality around the flow of accessibility-related information from all stakeholders so that existing gaps can start to be plugged.

“In business travel, it’s all about how information flows in both directions between the traveler and the supplier. Unfortunately, there are always going to be multiple unique points of failure as business travel is conducted through a very intermediated ecosystem,” Millot says.

She continues, “The barriers are real, but in terms of the opportunities, there is so much that companies can do to make sure that what is featured in the corporate travel booking tool of the company has accessible solutions that will ensure safe and enjoyable travel for all of their employees.”

As ever with DEI initiatives, equal access is just one side of the coin because getting corporate travel right just makes good business sense.

“Companies that set DEI objectives need to be walking the talk and if those ambitions are real, they also need to question why someone might not be comfortable disclosing a specific condition. There can be no doubt that business leaders want their employees to be productive when they travel. They certainly don’t want them spending twice the time it should take to book business trips and they want them to be safe,” Millot remarks.

This of course applies to all employees, not just those with disabilities. This reminds us of an adage of accessible universal design: if you can solve for the hardest use case, you often automatically solve for everybody else by default. Who can disagree that this makes great business sense in the long run?