Enable Travel is a startup in the travel space but with a unique business model; it is dedicated to helping the differently abled enjoy vacations as normal people do. Debolin Sen is the promoter of Enable Travel and the company is backed by Cox & Kings and the startup fashions itself as “India’s first accessible holiday specialist”.
As per an Economic Times report, after overcoming the initial challenges, the startup appears to be taking off with about 110 passengers already sent out and Enable has another 68 slated to travel in the coming months. These figures might appear small, but the company believes the universe is quite huge.
According to the ET report, even if 1% of the 27million persons categorized as “disabled” in India, choose to undertake travel, they become the target customers for Enable Travel. And they are aiming to attract these 2,70,000 persons, in addition to the foreign travelers who may buy their plans.
Enable managed to assemble a panel of disabled persons to guide them on the challenges faced by disabled persons while traveling to top tourist destinations or anywhere for that matter. The panel visited different locations and listed the cities, hotels and other places of interest, which are disabled-friendly to be included in the offers to Enable’s customers. The wheel chair-bound, blind, hearing and speech impaired are the typical groups targeted by this startup.
Jaipur, Kochi, Delhi and Coorg are the locations Enable is operating currently and without doubt, the list will keep expanding. Once those in the tourism and travel industry recognize the volume this business can bring in for them, they will definitely make all those modifications needed to facilitate easy access for the differently-abled to their facilities and services.
As of now, even the competitors of Enable appear to be acknowledging the fact that Enable Travel has latched on to a niche within the travel business and see a bright future for the startup.