ABLE Market:

Ensuring that your product or service is accessible is good for business.

Throughout the world people with disabilities and older people represent a significant consumer group. People with disabilities are your customers, your employees, your stakeholders, partners and competitors. Every business can take steps to make sure its products and services are accessible in order to tap into this market.

The ABLE Award will help you to identify ways to ensure that accessibility is a priority of your business. The Award builds confidence, rewards commitment and helps provide the rationale required to serve all of your customers equally.

Businesses and organisations who understand, value and recognise disability and accessibility needs often create more innovative products offering or enhanced their service delivery for existing and potential customers.

What's more, those businesses and organisations that consider accessibility as a competitive advantage have the ability to capture increased market share. This, in turn, can lead to increased earnings and success for the business, its employees, stakeholders and partners.

Businesses and organisations that recognise the importance of an accessible approach to business are usually leaders in opening their doors to new markets and customers. The ABLE Award provides the opportunity for businesses to improve current systems, processes and procedures whilst encouraging a new way of thinking about accessibility using a Q Mark approach. Those businesses that receive the ABLE Award will have created an environment for learning and continuous improvement which will benefit their customers, employees and overall business model.

Below you will find some compelling facts about the disability market.


Worldwide

  • There are 650 million disabled people worldwide. (UN, 2007)
  • From 2005 to 2030 the number of Europeans aged over 65 will increase by 52.3% - there will be 40 million older consumers. (EU Commission, 2005)
  • 42% of older US adults (65+) have one or more disabilities and by 2030 approximately 20% of the population (345 million) will be aged 65 or older. (Salerno et al, 2005)
  • There are 54 million Americans with disabilities who have a disposable spending power of $220 billion. 73% are heads of households and 48% are principal shoppers. (Rudney, 2005)
  • In 2002 American travelers with disabilities spent $13.6 billion on 31.7 million trips. (Rudney, 2005)
  • In 2001 the accommodations sector had $4.2 billion in revenue from disabled guests, resulting in 60,000 jobs created. (Rudney, 2005)
  • The airline industry had $3.3 billion in revenue from disabled travelers, creating 52,800 jobs. (Rudney, 2005)
  • Four out of 10 people with disabilities are online and spend twice the time logged on than their non-disabled counterparts. (Harris Interactive, 2005)


United Kingdom

  • One in three people in the UK are disabled or close to someone who is disabled. (EFD, 2008)
  • 10 million disabled people live in the UK with a combined annual spending power of £80 billion. (EFD, 2008)
  • The 50-plus generation is estimated to grow by more than 6 million in the next 25 years. (Mintel, 2006)
  • Consumer spending among the older people in the UK (50-to-69-year-olds) currently runs at £300bn a year, and this group buy more designer fashion, premium cars, and other expensive goods than any other group. (Mintel, 2006)
  • Two in three smaller businesses believe that social responsibilities contribute to a more successful business. (Mintel, 2006)
  • Nearly one in five people of working age (7 million, or 18.6%) in Great Britain have a disability. (Shaw Trust, Ability at Work)


Ireland

  • Almost 394,000 persons, representing 9.3% of the total population of Ireland, has a long lasting health problem or disability. Nearly 269,000 (62%) of these had more than one disability – up from 188,000 (58.1%) in 2002. (Census, 2006)
  • 176,000 people in Ireland are recorded with a physical disability. (Census, 2006)
  • About 11% of the Irish population (467,900 persons) were aged 65 & over in 2006. (Census, 2006)
  • The incidence of disability in Ireland accelerates with age. Up to 3% of children have a disability, and the rate has doubled to around 6% by age 40. At age 50, about one in ten people has a disability, rising to one in five by age 70. (Census, 2006)
  • It is projected that the old age population in Ireland will increase from 467,000 (2006 figures) to 759,000 in 2026. (OECD, 2003)


Disabled customers' experiences

  • 83% of disabled people ‘walked away' from inaccessible or unwelcoming businesses in 2005, unable or unwilling to make a purchase; only just over half complained about the poor service they received. (Disability Customer Survey, 2006)
  • 67% of disabled people choose businesses which are good at serving disabled customers. (Disability Customer Survey, 2006)
  • 58% of disabled people say that the way in which businesses treat them affects the shopping habits of their friends and families. (Disability Customer Survey, 2006)
  • 26% say that poor service means others are less likely to shop with the business; a further 16% said that friends and family never shop with companies which have provided a poor service. (Disability Customer Survey, 2006)
  • 54 % of disabled people surveyed consider Internet access essential, compared with only 6 per cent in the general population. (Disability Customer Survey, 2006)
  • 23% of disabled people prefer to shop online. (Disability Customer Survey, 2006)


Sources

  1. United Nations Convention on Rights of Persons with Disabilities, 2007
  2. European Commission Green Paper on Demographic Change, 2005
  3. Bridging the Workforce Gap for Our Aging Society: How to Increase and Improve Knowledge and Training. Report of an Expert Panel
    Alice Mankin LaMascus, MS,_ Marie A. Bernard, MD, _ Patricia Barry, MD, MPH,w
    Judith Salerno, MD, MS, z and Joan Weiss, PhD, RN, CN
  4. Robert Rudney, a Disability Market Survey 2003, NOD
  5. Employers Forum on Disability
    http://www.efd.org.uk/disability/disability-facts
  6. Mintel Research quoted in the Guardian UK
    http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2005/aug/19/gender.uk
  7. The Shaw Trust, Ability at work,
    http://www.shaw-trust.org.uk/disability_and_employment_statistics
  8. 2006 Census Reports
    http://www.cso.ie/Census/Census2006Results.htm
  9. The OECD Ireland Economic Survey (2003)
    http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/27/60/2955743.pdf
  10. 'The Walk Away £: Employers' Forum on Disability customer survey, 2006
    http://www.realising-potential.org/stakeholder-factbox/customers/#fn12
  11. National Organization on Disability and Aetna U.S. Healthcare, Harris Interactive (2006)