What Does It Actually Mean to Create a ‘Sensory Inclusive’ City?

Dan Matutina

This Future of Travel column is a recurring series written by JD Shadel exploring the innovations and bold ideas changing—and challenging—travel.

The anxiety-inducing lines and harsh fluorescent lights at airports; the noisy crowds at popular tourist attractions; and the booming audiovisual spectacle of an arena event. These are only a few of the everyday experiences that tend to be overwhelming to many travelers. But for some travelers with sensory needs, it can feel like someone’s taken a remote control and turned everything up to full blast.

Sensory processing challenges—when the brain has difficulty receiving and responding to information that comes in through the senses such as sound, touch, taste, sight, and smell—can affect a wide range of individuals, including people with autism, those with ADHD and anxiety, veterans with PTSD, adults with dementia or Parkinson’s disease, and stroke patients. “Sensory needs” is a really broad umbrella term because, some argue, it has to be. It shows just how many people deal with sensory needs when they travel, says Uma Srivastava, the executive director of KultureCity, the non-profit behind the Sensory Inclusion Certification increasingly seen at travel destinations across the country.

“One in four of us have some kind of sensory need,” Srivastava estimates, repeating a common talking point drawn from US Census Bureau data on disabilities. Of course, it’s not so simple: Landing on a precise percentage of the global traveling public experiencing invisible disabilities like these isn’t an exact science, as working definitions for what constitutes a “sensory need”—and even “invisible disability”—vary from source to source. (The CDC, for example, uses a broader “one in four adults in the United States have some type of disability” stat.) But the point stands: Sensory needs affect millions of people.

In some cases, sensory needs speak to challenges that just come with travel. “The barriers are sometimes just inherent to the traveling experience, like long lines in airports or being at a crowded tourist site,” says Zoe Gross, director of advocacy at the Autistic Self Advocacy Network (ASAN), a leading nonprofit advocacy organization run by and for individuals on the autism spectrum. “Those are barriers that [are] very difficult to remediate, but are some of the real things standing in the way between autistic people and a successful travel experience.”

Other barriers directly stem from a lack of awareness and systemic ableism. Cynthia Andrew shares stories on her Instagram account @SimplyCyn about the experiences of traveling with her twin three-year-old sons, who received autistic diagnoses more than a year ago. “It’s hard enough for families with neurotypical young kids to travel,” Andrew says. “Just imagine if you’re also navigating sensory needs.” At airports, for example, she recalls times when staff were not aware that some autistic children are nonspeaking. “They’ll say, ‘Step forward! Put your bag down!’ And I have to explain, ‘He’s non-verbal,’” she says. The frequent lack of knowledge from staff can make a stressful travel experience even more frustrating.

Recently, Andrew started investigating the ever-growing range of relevant certifications, training, and other industry schemes. For an upcoming trip, she chose to stay at a hotel that was designated an Advanced Certified Autism Center by IBCCES. But what do these kinds of certifications mean in practice? Like a lot of travelers, Andrew isn’t sure. “It feels like the Wild West with seemingly everyone creating their own certification,” she admits, noting that the range of claims being made in the travel space can be confusing to navigate.

Cynthia Andrew, @SimplyCyn, a traveler and mother of twin boys with autism

So it’s perhaps a double-edged sword that the number of lodging properties, airports, group travel providers, attractions, venues, cruise lines, and travel booking platforms that advertise their inclusive cred appears to have surged. There are, for example, more than 1,800—and counting—of these kinds of locations now certified as Sensory Inclusive by KultureCity. Recently, Philadelphia even became the first-ever “sensory inclusive city.”

Can we really certify our way to a more inclusive future? Meaningful moves toward inclusion should be welcomed, advocates tell me, but whether they can affect substantive progress ultimately depends on what actions a destination has taken to achieve the certification. “It all depends on what is involved in the certification and the training you have to go through to get it and what changes have to be made,” Gross says. But that’s where the picture can get a bit opaque, as most certifications aren’t so forthright with that information.

Is a sensory inclusive city possible?

In late December, local news reporters gathered at Philadelphia City Hall with community activists, residents, and the Eagles’ mascot, a bald eagle named Swoop.

In 2019, the Eagles became one of the first NFL teams to open a sensory room at their home venue, Lincoln Financial Field—a key part of the venue’s certification as a sensory-inclusive stadium. Events and venues have been a main focus of KultureCity’s work—since they launched 11 years ago, they’ve helped create hundreds of sensory places at events from the Super Bowl to Coldplay’s world tours. And KultureCity has built an enthusiastic following for its work in venues, where “no re-entry” rules are a common crowd-control measure, which practically means you can’t easily step away for a moment to decompress, as you won’t be allowed back in the venue once you exit.

Since games and concerts can be overwhelming experiences, sensory rooms accessible to visitors can enable those with sensory needs to help regulate their own experiences. For example, an adult with a sensory need might head to a sensory room to cope with overstimulation or sensory overload, though the spaces are designed to serve a wide range of sensory needs ranging from young families to older folks. But KultureCity’s Sensory Inclusive Certification has become a popular go-to in the wider hospitality world, too. So far, venues, museums, zoos, aquariums, major league sporting facilities dot the map of certified places. It was the Eagles that first introduced KultureCity to the City of Philadelphia, which set Philly on the path to becoming the first entire city to receive KultureCity’s Sensory Inclusive Certification.

KultreCity’s rather vague website has little information for travelers about what a destination does to achieve the certification. But in an interview with Condé Nast Traveler, Uma Srivastava of KultureCity was transparent about what’s required before certification is awarded: At least 50% of staff must undergo training in supporting people with sensory needs. Additionally, certified places must provide sensory tools, such as headphones and fidget devices, as well as sensory rooms or dedicated sensory spaces. Visual narratives, known as social stories, are also created to help prepare travelers for their visit, familiarizing them with the facility’s layout, staff uniforms (for ease of identification), and available accommodations. Those social stories are made available on the KultureCity app, which founder Julian Maha describes as a “Yelp for sensory needs.” Additionally, to receive certification, organizations need to pay a fee (at a cost not disclosed on KultureCity’s website).

Doing all that at a venue with dozens of employees is quite different from a city with a workforce of some 30,000 people. This made Philly’s certification a long process involving dozens of city departments, Srivastava tells me. The city has currently trained more than 16,000 staff members across various departments, including public transportation and city services. That’s a rare level of commitment at all levels of city administration, Srivastava stresses.

But on a practical level, what does mean when an entire city claims to have achieved sensory inclusion? And should more destinations pursue similar goals?

A “sensory informed” city, maybe—not a “sensory paradise”

While certifications like Philadelphia’s can drive positive changes, advocates caution about overstating what they can achieve. “I don’t want to be down on this certification or the idea of it,” says Zoe Gross of ASAN. “The things [Philadelphia has] done will be useful to people.” However, she notes that labeling an entire city as “sensory inclusive” may set unrealistic expectations.

The challenge, partly, becomes one of scale. Where KultureCity certifies venues, attractions, or even Carnival Cruise Line, the certification’s scope seems helpful and clear. I’ve personally visited some certified places as a traveler and found some benefits in the sensory spaces and the tools provided in so-called “Sensory Inclusive Bags,” which include noise-reducing headphones, shades to reduce glare, and fidget devices. The resources were developed with experts and neurodivergent people, Srivastava told me, and I’ve found the branded headphones and lanyards are helpful in some situations, when staff are trained to recognize your needs.

But when an entire destination achieves certification, the “sensory inclusive” claim seems to lose clarity, as the training and amenities only apply to city-run services and events. “If you say it’s a sensory friendly city, I worry that it's creating this idea of a sensory paradise that is just not possible to achieve,” Gross says. “It’s a hard designation to meaningfully get as a city.”

City-wide sensory inclusion may never be truly possible, advocates like Gross say. “What they mean is: This is a sensory informed city,” she concludes. “People have knowledge and they have tools, and those are really useful and helpful. But I don’t know that they’ve changed the sensory experience of the city all that much.” In other words, what Philly has achieved creates resources for visitors to City Hall, ensures 50% or more of city staff receive training, adds amenities to city-sponsored events, and so on—but it doesn’t fundamentally change the sensory challenges across Philly more broadly, which no certification can fundamentally address—in this city or in any other urban center.

As a traveling parent, Cynthia Andrew tends to think no place is truly sensory inclusive, but the certifications can still play a role in her decision making. “At this point, the only thing that [it] tells me is at least there’s some awareness,” she says. “It feels a little bit better to see someone say, ‘Hey, we see you, we understand you’re an autism family and we have something here for you.’ But do I feel like that means everybody really cares or understands my kid? Not necessarily.”

Originally Appeared on Condé Nast Traveler