Special Needs, Special Care

Assisting travellers with special needs is a business imperative whose time has come, particularly given the demographics of an aging but still active boomer generation. And IATA has developed a learning module to allow travel agents and their suppliers to serve customers with physical disabilities and mobility issues as well as those with hidden special needs such as sleep apnea and autism, Quebec editor, Mike Dunbar reports in this week’s digital edition of Canadian Travel Press.

“The topic of special needs travel is becoming more serious as IATA is coordinating the creation of a task force to review resolutions related to passengers with reduced mobility and standardize them for the airline industry and connected segments such as airports,” revealed a Montreal-based IATA spokeswoman.”

The Assisting Travelers with Special Needs course was released in late June this year following a year of research involving collection of information and references for content development that began in 2016.

Following that, it took another year to complete content authoring with external validation before production of the course which is available in e-textbok format. And it’s expected there will be more training to be rolled out over the next two years.

For the full story, check out this week’s digital edition of Canadian Travel Press.