How WelcoMe Lets Guests Share Access Needs Before Arrival

A power wheelchair user reaches the gangway on a dream cruise, looks down, and realises there is no safe way off the ship. Everyone cares. Nobody knows what to do. That single moment captures the real accessibility crisis: not a shortage of good intentions, but a shortage of systems that make accessible service repeatable, calm, and consistent. 

We sit down with Gavin Neate, founder of WelcoMe, and Mike Clapper of Able2Global to unpack how accessibility can move from awkward last-minute improvisation to something you handle the same way you handle any other guest preference. We talk about why disabled people end up accepting subpar service, why brands hide behind compliance instead of focusing on customer experience, and why hyper-personalization cannot stop at marketing. Welcome’s approach is practical: let people share access and communication needs before they arrive, directly through a venue website or inside booking platform integration, with the guest in control of what they disclose. 

We also dig into the execution layer that most organisations miss: staff training. Gavin explains the forgetting curve and why one-off training fails, then shares a lightweight, gamified weekly approach that keeps disability inclusion top of mind without turning it into a checkbox exercise. Mike brings the business case for inclusive hospitality in the United States, showing why accessible travel is both a human issue and a revenue issue, and why the market is far bigger than most leaders assume. 

If you care about accessibility technology, hospitality accessibility, and building an accessible guest experience that feels normal instead of exceptional, this conversation will give you a clear model and a few uncomfortable truths. Subscribe, share this with a leader who owns customer experience, and leave a review telling us where you want to see “access needs before arrival” become the standard.

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