Celebrating Global Accessibility Awareness Day
As a deaf-owned travel company that provides unique tours around the world 100% directly in sign language to our customers, we support the Global Accessibility Awareness Day movement that occurs annually on the third Thursday of May. This movement helps raise awareness about digital accessibility and inclusion for people across the world who are deaf and hard of hearing or have disabilities.
For several years, deaf people weren’t able to utilize mainstream media easily due to a lack of access. We relied on other people to receive information that was primarily audio-based i.e. travel podcasts, book-on-tapes, or even nightly news broadcasts until it was made available in visual or readable formats. That’s one of the reasons why we ensure our website and digital media is accessible for all who wish to learn more about Hands On Travel, and why we’re committed to providing direct communication access on tours.
We’ll also provide accessible captions and transcripts depicting what we sign in videos when possible due to the nature of our team often being on-the-go doing what we love best – providing tours to our customers.
We also asked Terry Giansanti, the founder of Hands On Travel, why he founded this company and what accessibility means to him. He stated:
“One of the reasons I decided to establish Hands On Travel was because I received complaints from people who visited Europe and were unable to obtain full communication access during their travels. A lack of understanding really does detracts from a person’s travel experience.
One of the basic tenets of our company is to ensure that all of our participants have full understanding, at all times, of what’s going on around them. Communication access is essential, not only as part of your daily home-and-work routines, but also when you pack your bags and go visit somewhere new.”
To learn more about Hands On Travel and how we provide full accessibility in sign language while on tour for deaf schools, ASL/ITP programs at universities, private and public group tours, contact our team today at hello@handson.travel.
To learn more about Global Awareness Accessibility Day, click here.
