This Mumbai-based digital travel start-up offers safe and accessible holidays for globetrotters with disabilities

Do you love travelling or are you one of those adventure junkies who'd like to climb mountains and touch the sky? But does your disability hold you back from doing what you truly love? Don't be disheartened. Enable Travel’s got your back.

Powered by Cox & Kings, Enable Travel is catering to the travel aspirations of people with disabilities. With specialised equipment, a fleet of wheelchair accessible vehicles, experienced guides, and sign language interpreters, Enable has made holidays accessible by curating tailor-made outings for the disabled.

The organisation has been curated with the help of experienced travellers such as ABB’s Ganatra, Rustom Irani, a wheelchair-bound filmmaker, Prabal Malakar, a former group captain affected by multiple sclerosis, Alim Chandani, Associate Vice-President at Centum Learning, who has a hearing impairment, and Shama Noorani, PR consultant

EdEx caught up with Debolin Sen, Head of the organisation to find out more about the organisation and the services offered by it. Excerpts:

What are you trying to address through this initiative?
Enable Travel is dedicated to Sanjeev Shenvi. He’s been battling Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) for the last 18 years. ALS is a specific disease that causes the death of neurons, which control voluntary muscles. He is a wonderful person who refuses to give up in the face of such adversity. His willingness to fight and live makes the challenges we face in our daily lives seem insignificant. He embodies Enable Travel’s spirit of #CanDo and has been the inspiration behind its launch.

Travel bug:  Enable Travel offers customised travel experiences in over 15 Indian cities, including the national capital 

What are the current itineraries curated by Enable Travel?
Our aim is to target the top selling and popular destinations from an inbound, domestic and outbound market. We launched with 15 destinations earlier this year and are on course to adding extensively to this list, both domestically and internationally. Some of the cities in India are Delhi, Agra, Jaipur, Udaipur, Jodhpur, Mumbai, Goa, Bengaluru, Mysuru, and Coorg. All the itineraries have been designed keeping the four disabilities in mind (wheelchair users/visually impaired/ hearing impaired/people with speech disorders). Recently, we also introduced itineraries for senior citizens who need assistance and wheelchair access.  

How many youth have reached out to you?
Not just youth. Our audience cuts across age segments, including senior citizens. While these are early days, the response has been extremely encouraging. Enable Travel is just over six months old. Many domestic disabled travellers have shown interest in travelling within the country and also abroad. Internationally, we’ve been aggressively marketing ourselves as well and we will soon see disabled international travellers arriving in India. I am sure the volume and the frequency of travel will increase.

Enable Travel has its own specialised fleet for wheelchair users. These WAVs (wheelchair accessible vehicles) are stationed in select zones pan India. Each WAV comes equipped with rear down entry, in-built ramps and safety harness for a wheelchair passenger. Transportation is most important for wheelchair users

Debolin Sen, Founder, Enable Travel

What are your future plans with regards to the organisation?
Immediate plans are to nurture the 6-month-old venture till a stage when the brand can stand and walk and run. And in this context, it’s important to know the market potential. Enable Travel can become as large as we wish it to be. It’s an untapped market which holds tremendous potential. Category creation and market penetration will be key. Being nimble and responsive to emerging requirements and needs will be important. The total inbound market for travel for people with disabilities is several million dollars. 

Reach Out: www.enabletravel.com