Last week we dispelled a couple of popular myths about people with disabilities. Today I want to dispel another one and hopefully drive home the point that people with disabilities (PWD) are truly a viable market.
Myth #3: People with Disabilities Spend all of Their Money on Healthcare
Truth: Would You Believe (according to the Simmons Market Research Bureau) that of the millions of people limited in their everyday activities due to long-term disability
Ø 46% are married
Ø 48% are the principle shoppers
Ø 58% own their own homes
Ø 73% are head of their household
Ø 77% have no kids at home
This last percentage is perhaps the most important. Why? Because those that don’t have kids at home have even more disposable income, giving them more free time for travel and leisure.
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2 comments:
Great Info, Craig!
Thanks for digging and sharing your nuggets of truth. It's about time that the world of travel pays attention to this (travel & adventure) hungry, active and growing market of travelers. We all need to do our part to equalise the availability and accommodations. I will continue to do my part with regards to "on the water" travel vacations! There is exciting news coming!
Keep up the great tips, news and education
Sherri Bacsktrom
Waypoint Yacht Charter Services
As a nurse I have cared for clients with large legal settlements in the bank who think it is the ultimate irony that they have money but are not candidates for elective travel. None I knew would have known how to evaluate their own capabilities or identify and coordinate the resources they'd need to make it an adventure and not an ordeal. All they knew of assisted transportation was lying alone in the AMR ambulance going to the doctor or or tied down alone in their wheelchair in the center of a chair car just to get to the drug store. They knew they would never get to rub shoulders with someone else on a bench seat like everyone else. The resources offered by a site like the Kennedys' are invaluable but useless unless the individual with the bank account can emerge from the PTSD, inevitable from the trauma itself and the assorted hospital and rehabilitation nightmares, and begin to entertain the notion that for him or her recreational activities are even conceivable. Then to think that they, themselves, could acquire the necessary information, even to figure out what it is they need to know. Companies that could take that first call and coordinate the transportation, the activities and entertainment, the accommodations, and the oh-so-vital intermittent or continuous supportive care were nonexistent. For the PWD or their family to envision the journey, to anticipate and confront all the obstacles and then set off on the trip all by themselves would require experience and an extraordinarily self-empowering mind set, far harder to acquire than the money to pay for it. That's where someone like Craig is so influential if the PWD or family is fortunate enough to hear him speak.
It was this experience nursing young adults with spinal cord and head injuries and children with CP, DMD, HIV, CF, JRA, mental illness, and MR that inspired my resolve to provide comprehensive access to assisted and specialized transportationand all that goes with it. To go the last step and open the door to travel nursing means that no one who knows about us and wants to do the Indy 500, or worship at the National Cathedral, or blast some tunes on a night cruise at Hampton beach, can be prevented any longer from getting the fullest enjoyment from life that they can afford, just like everyone else.
At least, no one with a pulse.
Mary Perry, Liberty Livery, Exeter, NH
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