YDC Best Social Impact Award

TourGuy

We have discovered that there are a lot of people with physical disability, such as wheelchair rider, are facing a lot of trouble during their travel. It is very hard for them to get to the place that they wanted to reach as there is a lot of limitation when traveling with a wheelchair. The single upstair at the side of the pedestrian road seem nothing to normal people, but it can be one of the biggest obstacles of wheelchair users. Unlike traveling within their neighborhood, it is very hard and cost time for them to find the correct way in an unfamiliar place.

Apart from that, disables are not able to travel in a small group or individually, as they require rehab-shuttle and assistant companion during their travel. Hence, disables usually travel in a group of 10 or more people in order to have the things that they need. However, this can be very troublesome as well as very limited places are able to simultaneously contain a group of wheelchair users and most place only have a single disable toilet.

We proposed a project named “TourGuy”, an online platform for trained local to provide tour guide service for individual or small group disables travelers. The trained local tour guide will be educated with knowledge of handling a wheelchair and barrier-free traveling information. Hence the local tour guide can bring them to the most accessible travel landmark and deliver the best traveling experience to them.

According to the result of our focus group interview, we understood disables have a great desire to travel in a small group and many Hong Kong local disables are unemployed. TourGuy is able to solve these two main needs together as we are planning to recruit disables to be our local tour guide as well. Who will have the best understanding of disables? It is disables, themselves! They know what disables needs, they know how to travel freely in their city with a wheelchair. By having both physically able and disable the tour guide, we also aim to alleviate the unemployment issue of disables.

The platform will allow trained local tour guide posting their proposed trip/ itinerary on the platform for oversea disable who are planning to travel to Hong Kong to buy their service. Customer can compare different itinerary and choose the one they like the most, they can also alter the trip by messaging with their tour guide within the platform.

For more information, please contact dare.to.change@ydc.org.hk

Photo of YDC Best Social Impact Award Winning Team - TourGuy and Judge of Dare To Change Competition

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