By CHERYL ROMANO/YachatsNews
If you use a wheelchair or a cane, or a hearing aid or special eyeglasses, how easy — or tough — is it to fully enjoy a visit to the Oregon coast? And to visit more often, stay longer and pump more money into the economies of Yachats, Waldport and surrounding towns?
Those are the questions being pursued by a global organization dedicated to making the world a more accessible place. And thanks to grants from Travel Oregon, eight coastal towns will soon be finding out just how welcoming the welcome mats are to those with disabilities.
Grants totaling $201,000 have been allotted to chambers of commerce in Yachats ($20,000), Waldport ($17,500), Newport ($33,190), Florence ($30,500), Depoe Bay ($20,000), Coos Bay ($25,000), Astoria-Warrenton ($35,000), and the city of Lincoln City ($20,000). The money, from Travel Oregon and the Oregon Tourism Commission, will allow the towns to partner with Wheel the World (https://wheeltheworld.com/about-us), a global accessible travel data enterprise.
The money will pay for inspectors from Wheel the World to visit each town with a team — including people with disabilities — to assess things like parking lots, hotel entries and the width and surfaces of trails, all with an eye toward accommodating tourism by people with physical and/or developmental issues. Those results will then be in the group’s database to help the disabled identify and book accessible travel experiences.
Impact on whole coast
“All of us (coastal cities) working together on the same project makes a bigger impact on the whole coastal region,” said Bobbi Price, executive director of the Yachats Chamber of Commerce. She wrote the Yachats’ grant application, and was instrumental in helping the other chambers make a coordinated effort to secure funds at the same time.
“Here in Yachats specifically, we have 10 places that will have an assessment conducted,” she told YachatsNews. Those include hotels, restaurants and trails. In Waldport, the assessment teams will visit another 10 locales, covering some campgrounds and beaches, as well as restaurants and hotels/motels.
“This project, at no cost to business owners and organizations, will let our current residents, including seniors and people with disabilities, go to places that maybe they’ve never visited before in Waldport,” said Tom Fullmer, executive director of the Waldport Chamber of Commerce.
In addition, by getting placed on the Wheel the World global website, Waldport businesses and attractions will enjoy added revenue.
“Our accessibility information will be on this global website … opening the doors to Waldport to a new type of customer,” Fullmer said. “About one-third of the population has some sort of disability, and this initiative makes sure everyone can have access to Waldport if they’d like to visit us.”
Fullmer said the Wheel the World assessments will be conducted during the next 30 days, targeting a May completion date for the central coast. The grant guidelines stipulate that the entire project must be completed by Dec. 31.
The assessments in hotels, for example, will cover a range of items, said Price, including access into elevators, bed heights, door widths, bathroom access, safety and more. After the assessments are completed, participating businesses and groups will get reports from Wheel the World that they can share on their websites, as well as having their offerings posted on the organization’s site.
In between the assessments and getting promoted on the Wheel the World website, stores, shops, motels and tourist attractions can take an online academy through the organization, according to Price.
“This is tailored to each participant, looking at where they’re at now, and what they might do to improve.”
For Price, the disability access work “became a passion project really fast.” Her son, Nolan, 11, has cerebral palsy.
Because of her family experience, Price said they are sometimes limited in travel based on unknowns. Some of the questions Price said she has to ask is “How will we navigate? What is the seating like? What is the distance between points A to B? What is the terrain like?”
Price said sharing information about accessibility became her passion – letting people know what to expect in hotels, restaurants, and trails and trying to provide a “know before you go” resource so people can make their own educated choices.
Because of that, the Yachats chamber director, who started her job last September, was recently invited to be a panel moderator at the 2023 Oregon Governor’s Conference on Tourism this April. The panel topic? “Growing Accessible Destinations.”
- Cheryl Romano is a Yachats freelance reporter who contributes regularly to YachatsNews.com. She can be reached at Wordsell@gmail.com
Thank you Bobbie Price.
For far too long our built environment has been left either inaccessible, or at the very least uncomfortably accessible, for too many people. A better understanding of what accessible means is incredibly important and easily learned. Organizations such as Wheel the World, the Center for Excellence in Universal Design, and 880 Cities are helping communities become places where everyone, no matter their abilities, whether they are visiting somewhere or live full-time in a place, can feel welcomed and empowered to live their lives fully. When we build our environment to meet the needs of some, we find that we have built our communities to be a better place for everyone.
Congratulations to the cities of the Oregon Coast for working together on this project.