What Outdoor Hospitality Can Learn From the Spinal Cord Injury Community
What Outdoor Hospitality Can Learn From the Spinal Cord Injury Community
Look at what Oregon Spinal Cord Injury Connection actually runs and you learn a lot about travel very quickly.
They operate a wheelchair repair shop. They run CampAbility and wheelchair hiking. They keep a list of accessible trails, and a list of paratransit services county by county, because getting there is half of everything. They publish data on spinal cord injury in Oregon so decisions get made on facts.
That is not a wish list. That is a picture of what it takes to get through a normal week, and it is the best hospitality briefing we have read.
A broken part ends a trip
Most lodging plans do not include the words wheelchair repair. But a caster fails, a battery does not hold, a cushion goes flat, and suddenly the guest is not on a trip anymore, they are stranded two hours from home.
The lesson we take: keep power available where equipment actually sits, keep a dry covered place for it, keep tools and a compressor on site, and know who the nearest repair contact is before a guest ever needs one. None of that is expensive. It is just planning.
The route in is part of the room
OSCI maintains transportation resources because the trip does not start at the front door. If someone cannot get to the site, the site is not accessible, no matter how good the bathroom is.
So we are asking the boring questions early. How far from the last stretch of paved road? What does the driveway do in December? Can a lift van turn around? Is there a firm surface from the vehicle to the lodging, and is it lit at night?
Lived experience beats good intentions
We can guess what people need. We would guess wrong. The disability community, and specifically people living with spinal cord injuries, have run this experiment thousands of times in real hotels, campgrounds and cabins.
That is why Lucky Star Retreats is being built with input from disabled community members from the start rather than after a ribbon cutting. Colleen has spent her career in movement, wellness and neurological focused work, and even with that background the answer is the same. Ask the people who know.
What we are doing with the input
We are in pre-launch. The site, the buildout and the lodging mix are still being shaped, which is exactly why now is the time to hear from people.
If you live with a spinal cord injury, work with the SCI community, or have a story about a trip that fell apart over something a host could have fixed, we want to hear it. Read about how we are approaching community, or tell us directly.