The Initial Journey

It was rather difficult to find an idea for this blog as there are so many innovations and technologies involved in hospitality and tourism industry already that make our travelling experiences brilliant. 

However, I accidentally read an article about one deaf man‘s (Jim Actor) and his wife‘s travelling experiences. He was telling about several difficulties that deaf people face when travelling. After reading this article I thought that some modern technologies could actually improve travelling experiences of deaf or hard of hearing. Hence, I decided to focus on special customer needs of deaf and hard of hearing people.

I think it is important to pay attention to deaf and hard of hearing people as there are huge numbers of them and they have the same wants and expectations of travelling as other people. According to Jamie Berke (2010), the deafness guide, there are no reliable deafness statistics as these numbers are always changing and some people do not identify themselves as having a hearing loss. However, it is estimated that there are from 22 million to 36 million deaf and hard of hearing (Berke, 2010). These are significant numbers and I truly believe that issues concerning people having hearing problems and particularly their travel experiences require much more attention than they get at the moment.

Travelling for people who have problems with hearing is rather limited today. First of all, this is because they need interpreters to help them during the whole trip. Secondly, they have to travel with other deaf or hard of hearing people if they do not want to be left out and enjoy their journey in the same way as other travellers. Lastly, if deaf or hard of hearing prefer to travel alone they might face lots of problems at destinations and particularly during the tours or excursions. 

In order to improve travelling experiences of this particular group of people businessmen or organisations could use modern technologies like a special mobile app or screens which would provide information in sign language. It would make their journeys more enjoyable and satisfying. Thus, I will focus on a special mobile application that contains a number of facilities in order to improve travelling of people with hearing problems.