Meet John Sage, a PWD who has traveled to 45 countries on his wheelchair

KIGALI, Rwanda — Traveling remains a significant challenge for people globally. However, one individual is determined to enhance global travel accessibility, particularly for persons with disabilities.

Meet Texas-native John Sage, founder and CEO of Accessible Travel Solutions. 

Despite being bound by two wheels, that has not stopped him from exploring 45+ countries and over 200 cities in Europe.

His objective? To bring traveling closer and easier to people disenfranchised within the tourism sector due to lack of inclusivity. 

“Accessible Travel Solutions is our accessible [business-to-business] tour operator. So we provide accessible tours and vacation packages for people with disabilities,” he said to Philstar.com last Thursday at the sidelines of the World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC) Global Summit 2023.

Sage observed that there is no one-size fits all approach to making traveling inclusive.

For example, while the Texas-native finds flat and drivable cities like Houston to be accessible, people with other disability types might not feel the same way.  

“So for me as a wheelchair user, that is very accessible,” he said.

“But for someone who’s blind, that would be very difficult because most of the businesses and attractions are not connected very easily by public transportation. Probably the most difficult tourist destination I've been to is Cinque Terre in Italy because those towns are literally perched on the sides of hills. So it is very steep no matter where you go."

A human rights issue for PWDs

Data from the World Health Organization (WHO) says that around 1.3 billion people worldwide experience “significant disability,” which poses considerable challenges to their active participation in tourism.

Meanwhile, Article 30 of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities requires state parties to “take all appropriate measures to ensure" that PWDs could enjoy access to places and tourism services.

For Sage, who also heads Sage Traveling, making things accessible doesn’t end with making facilities inclusive. It also involves:

accessible customer service (processes, policies and training)

accessibility documentation