085 | The Future of Accessible Tourism with Vacayit
About this episode
Hailey Brown discusses her mission to create accessible travel experiences through her audio guide platform, VacayIt.
Hailey Brown is on a mission to reshape how the world experiences travel and she's doing it one audio guide at a time. In this episode, Despina Karatzias sits down with Hailey Brown, founder of VacayIt, a free audio guide platform creating immersive, sensory-rich narratives for travellers worldwide. Driven by her academic background in both tourism and psychology, and inspired by her blind friend Henry who described a safari as little more than "a face full of dirt," Hailey identified a glaring gap in the market: the visitor experience journey had never been properly designed with people with disabilities in mind. From presenting at the World Tourism Forum in Lucerne during COVID, to winning a Global Innovation Award, Hailey's story is one of courageous curiosity, bold asks, and deeply purposeful entrepreneurship. What makes VacayIt extraordinary is that it was never just built for people with disabilities, it was co-designed with them, and the result is a richer experience for all travellers. Hailey unpacks the commercial case for accessible tourism, shares how her team has become intrinsically accessible by simply hiring the best people for the job, and reflects on navigating a…
More episodes of Tourism Hub Podcast with Despina Karatzias
- 088 | Driving Regional Tourism Through Technology, Data, and Innovation
- 087 | Measuring What Matters, The Data Story with Dave Hockly
- 086 |Building a Business Under the Stars with Kelly Kuhn
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