Disability Dollar

It’s not only our disabilities which are often invisible; it’s the #DisabilityDollar and its impact on the bottom line.

The disability dollar

The disability dollar is the lost revenue or additional costs incurred by excluding people with disabilities when developing products and services.

"Australia’s accessible tourism sector is worth about $10 billion. This is on par with the value of the inbound Chinese tourism market." - My Travel Reserach on Escape.com.au

When I read this, my reaction was to explain it away. There is no way there could be so much investment in Chinese tourism, not in accessible tourism. Surely the tourism industry wouldn’t leave that much money on the table, would they? Would they?

“My legs don't work, but my credit card does.” - Lisa Cox TedX Brisbane

(In)capable

It’s not uncommon for people to think we can’t look after ourselves or make life decisions. Still, I was stunned recently to be dismissed by someone telling me, “People with disabilities don’t make purchase decisions” as if that is a reason not to consider our needs. Or even true.

The May 2023 edition of British Vogue was titled “Nothing is more fashionable than inclusivity”. It featured people with disabilities on the cover, reflecting a trend towards corporate interest in our wallets through acceptance of our autonomy.

People with disabilities are used to being infantilised. Business leaders are not. Commercially this parentified thinking denies our autonomy in the path to purchase. The disability dollar stems from not seeing us as capable of everyday decisions and can fuel a magnanimous decision-making attitude.

This can only be solved by having people with disabilities in leadership positions and with a voice at the decision-making table.

Data-informed or data invisible? 

One possible antidote could be data. In a corporate setting, data gives our voice a seat at the decision-making table. It's an insurance policy for a lack of disabled leaders in almost all organisations.

However, data can hide the disability dollar. People with disabilities and the medical nature of disability mean this is a protected attribute. The unintended consequence, it's harder to cut quantitive data by those with disabilities. And more expensive or deliberate when included in qualitative research. 

And that relies on the data literacy of the decision-makers.

No data about people with disabilities means the data is missing from the decision-making data set. It doesn’t mean we have no opinion or needs worth considering. It means we need a seat. It means our opinions and needs are not obvious, making it harder for non-disabled business leaders to consider different decisions.

The effort is worth it.

Repeatedly, research and case studies indicate yes.

"The cost of exclusion of people with disabilities represents up to 7% of GDP in some countries." - World Economic Forum

According to The Valuable 500, the largest global network of CEOs committed to disability inclusion, there is $1.9 Trillion in spending power globally by the disability community. And it’s not just for services related to managing our disabilities.

How is there so much value in the accessible tourism sector? It's estimated that "around 20 per cent of people with a disability say they would go on holiday even more if they were aware of travel products that met their needs."

After the disability dollar, there are countless examples of assistive technology scaling mainstream. That's more markets and less effort. Netflix reported that 40% of its global viewers used Closed Captions at all times, and 80% used them at least monthly. Suri and Alexa started as assistive technology.

It’s not only our disabilities which are often invisible; it’s the #DisabilityDollar and its potential impact on the bottom line.

Unlearning prompts

To realise the disability dollar consider unlearning

• Assumptions about our role in purchase decisions
• Our visibility and inclusion in the data used to make decisions

Join the unlearning.

You can subscribe to learn with me. I’ll share what I learn (and unlearn) about accessibility and disability. Together we will consider the implications for impactful commercial and human outcomes.