Yann Charavel: Building Australia’s Most Trusted Inclusive Travel Ecosystem

Origins and Personal Motivation

Yann, can you start by sharing a little about your personal story? What shaped the values and outlook you bring to your work today?

I grew up in Paris with my brother. My parents travelled often and brought us along, so we were exposed to different cultures and food from a young age. To my mother’s dismay, that taste for travel turned into me living in three different countries. I moved to Australia in my mid-twenties, spent a few years in Canada where my wife is from, and then came back to Australia. My French upbringing is part of who I am, but it is not what drives the inclusion work. What drives it is closer to home and came later.

You have had a long career across corporate transformation, consulting, systems design, and strategy. What inspired your pivot into disability-inclusive travel?

After 17 years in management consulting, I wanted to be my own boss. So in November 2019, my business partner Andrew and I bought a travel agency. Four months before the world shut down. It was not the best timing, but it turned out to be the right kind of trigger. I was still working part time in consulting at that point, which gave us a bit of runway.

What pushed me firmly into the disability-inclusive travel space was a combination of two experiences I had right around that period, and the realisation that the travel industry was about to have to reinvent itself anyway. Once you see the gap clearly, it is very hard to unsee it.

When did disability and inclusion first enter your world personally?

My first real exposure was in Canada. I was not particularly keen to rush back to corporate work, so I volunteered as an adaptive ski instructor. It was an eye-opener. Watching someone with a disability come down a mountain, doing something most people consider almost ordinary, you see in real time how a well-designed experience can transform a life. That was when I understood that inclusion is not about doing something different for people. It is about giving them access to what everyone else takes for granted.

Was there a defining moment, professional or personal, that made you realise accessibility in travel needed radical rethinking?

There were two, and they landed close together.

The first was professional. A colleague of mine in the consulting team was a wheelchair user. After a conference in Sydney, our firm had organised the travel and the hotel. We arrived to check in around 11pm and he discovered he could not get into his room. It was not accessible. He had to find another hotel at that hour, in a strange city. These were experienced corporate travel agents and they still could not guarantee his safety or his comfort. I remember thinking, if the system fails for him with this much support around him, what happens to a family doing this on their own?

The second moment was personal. I flew back to Paris with my partner and our four-month-old daughter, and we tried to take the Metro. We were lifting the pram over the gates, hauling it up stairs, navigating a system clearly not designed for anyone outside a very narrow definition of a normal traveller. It hit me that this is what wheelchair users deal with every day, what older travellers deal with, what anyone with significant luggage deals with. Accessibility is not a niche issue. It is a design failure that everyone pays for at some point.

Those two moments together pushed us to found Supported Travel eXperiences, STX. There was no bespoke travel service in Australia that could properly support people with complex needs. So we built one.

Before accessibility, your career included leadership roles at PwC, Litmus Group, Renault, and Government. How has your experience in strategy, systems, and business transformation shaped your approach in the inclusive travel space?

Consulting taught me how to enter a new industry, quickly understand the value chain, and figure out where the real problems are. I learned how to manage risk, run complex projects with many stakeholders, and design processes that hold up under pressure. Those are exactly the muscles you need to plan supported travel, where one missed detail can ruin a trip or genuinely compromise someone’s safety. The travel sector has rarely had transformation thinkers in it. Bringing that mindset to a sector that needs it has turned out to be our unfair advantage.

Was there anything from your corporate years, a mindset, a methodology, or a lesson, that became unexpectedly valuable in this new mission?

Customer service. Or more precisely, the discipline of being accountable to the outcome, not just the deliverable. In consulting you learn that the work is not done when the report lands, it is done when the client’s problem is actually resolved. We carry that into every trip. We do not get it right 100 percent of the time. Nobody in this business does. But when something does go wrong, we are on the client’s side helping resolve it, not making excuses. Our customers feel that, and they tell us about it. That mindset, which I expected to be a transferable management skill, has turned out to be the single biggest differentiator between us and a traditional travel agent.

One Traveller, One Destination, One Region

Think of it as a ladder. STX proved we could do it for one traveller. AccessibleOz scaled it to a destination. AccessA lifts whole regions. Each rung had to be earned before the next one could exist.

You co-founded STX Supported Travel eXperiences. How did STX come to life?

STX came directly out of the two moments I described, plus a hard look at the market. There was clearly demand. There was genuinely good supply, more than people realised. What was missing was the bespoke service layer that could connect them safely. We started in 2020 with a domestic Australian focus, helping travellers and their families reconnect during COVID when travel had become difficult for everyone, not just people with disabilities. From there we grew into outbound trips. Six years on, STX is the bespoke door-to-door supported travel arm of the group. It is the rung where every detail of one traveller’s experience is designed, delivered, and held accountable.

What was the spark behind AccessibleOz?

After several years of designing highly personalised travel experiences, we realised we’d accumulated something much bigger than a travel business. We had developed a deep understanding of what makes destinations genuinely accessible and inclusive—not just on paper, but in practice.

We also recognised that Australia already has many outstanding accessible experiences. The challenge wasn’t a lack of opportunity; it was making that knowledge easier to discover and giving international travel professionals greater confidence when recommending Australia to travellers with access requirements.

AccessibleOz was created to help showcase that broader story while encouraging destinations and tourism businesses to continue raising the standard of inclusive visitor experiences.

What gap or unmet need in the Australian travel landscape were you determined to address?

The gap was bespoke. Most Australian travel agents will sell you a package. Very few will design a trip from scratch around your specific needs, then deliver it door to door. That gap is even wider for travellers with complex access needs, support requirements, or particular medical equipment. Our customers want to travel wherever, whenever, with whoever. The industry was not set up to deliver that. We are.

How would you describe the mission and founding philosophy of AccessibleOz in your own words?

Our ambition is simple: to help position Australia as one of the world’s leading destinations for accessible and inclusive travel.

We believe accessibility should never be viewed as a specialist niche. It should be recognised as part of delivering exceptional visitor experiences for everyone. That means helping tourism businesses understand where they are today, where they can improve, and giving international buyers confidence that Australia offers both outstanding experiences and genuine inclusivity.

Australia already has strong foundations. Our role is to help connect those strengths and encourage continual improvement across the visitor economy.

You are launching the AccessibleOz Itinerary Studio to international markets in mid-2026. What does it solve that nothing else does?

Travel agents wanting to sell Australia to a client with access needs have largely been guessing, or relying on a single supplier’s claim that their product is accessible. The Itinerary Studio, at studio.accessibleoz.com, gives them a structured way to build a full Australian itinerary, with each component tagged for the specific access requirements it meets.

The clever bit is the two-tier supplier trust model. Some products are AOZ Verified, which means we have personally assessed them against our Accessibility and Inclusion Index. Others are AI Suggested gap-fillers, used where verified options do not yet exist in a particular location. The travel designer always knows which is which. That transparency is what builds trust in a market where trust has been the missing ingredient.

And the newest piece, AccessA. What does it actually do, and why launch it now?

Our more recent work has expanded beyond supporting individual travellers to helping destinations themselves better understand accessibility across the entire visitor journey.

Rather than assessing a single hotel or attraction in isolation, we’re increasingly looking at how accommodation, transport, attractions, public spaces and visitor services work together.

This provides destinations with a clearer picture of where improvements can have the greatest impact, allowing investment to be targeted where it will make the biggest difference for visitors.

With major international events approaching, there is a unique opportunity for destinations to think more strategically about accessibility as part of their long-term visitor economy rather than simply preparing for a single event.

What have been the most meaningful challenges in building Australia’s leading disability travel agency from the ground up?

Finding the right local strategic partners. People we can trust, who genuinely get it, with staff who demonstrate care and a real sense of service. You cannot deliver bespoke accessible travel through a generic supplier base. You have to build it traveller by traveller, region by region, and you have to be willing to walk away from suppliers who say the right things and deliver the wrong ones. That has been the slow work.

The other challenge has been telling the story to the broader industry. Accessibility is still seen as a compliance task in too many boardrooms. Shifting that perception, one operator at a time, is the long game we are still playing.

The Travellers Who Were Told the World Was Closed

STX focuses on door-to-door personalised experiences, support workers, equipment planning and more. What have guests taught you about what truly matters in supported travel?

That everyone is different. Every person has very specific needs. And yet everyone is the same when it comes to wanting to travel. People with access needs are not asking for special treatment. They are asking for the same thing every traveller wants. To trust they will have a good time and be understood.

Our team members either live with a disability themselves or have lived experience close to home. We understand what failure looks like in this work, because failure here is not a bad review. Failure is someone stranded at 11pm. That changes how you operate.

Can you share a moment where you witnessed travel profoundly transform a traveller with additional needs?

A young teenager who is ventilator-dependent and almost fully paralysed, with only minimal movement in one foot. He needs 24/7 care from two support workers trained in tracheostomy management. The logistical footprint of his travel is significant. Life support equipment, hoists, backup power supplies, the lot.

His family came to us because they wanted him to have his first supported family holiday for his 15th birthday. It was also a test case for travelling him across Australia later to compete at a national level in boccia. We met them in their home to understand his equipment and support needs. That meeting was about building trust before anything else.

From there we did the full site inspection of the hotel, took our own measurements, photos and videos, sat down with the hotel management team to walk through his specific needs, arranged for his medical equipment to be relocated by a trusted supplier from his home to the hotel and back, booked short term holiday support workers who met the family before the trip so the young man was not facing unfamiliar carers on day one, arranged early check in and late check out so equipment could be installed and packed while the family was out together, and provided onsite support throughout in case of any emergency.

The family could just be a family. That is the whole point.

Another that stays with you?

A woman in her fifties who travelled to Cyprus to reconnect with family she had not been able to see for more than 25 years. We get a lot of requests from people who have never travelled before, or have not travelled in decades, because the logistics felt impossible, or because they did not know that help even existed. That woman travelling to Cyprus is the reason we do this. Some trips are about adventure. Some are about reunion. Both matter, and both deserve to be possible.

What does accessible travel mean to you beyond infrastructure, in terms of dignity, agency, trust, and emotional safety?

They are exactly the right words. Accessible travel is the traveller trusting they will be understood. It is the right to make a real decision about your own trip. It is the absence of having to explain yourself five times to five different staff members. Infrastructure matters, but infrastructure on its own is dead weight if the human service layer around it does not work. The hotel room can be perfect on paper and still fail at 11pm because the front desk has not been trained.

What is a travel misconception about people with disabilities that you wish the world would finally retire?

That adding a ramp makes a product accessible to everyone. Everyone is different and every person has very specific needs. And at the same time, everyone is the same when it comes to wanting to experience the world. People with disabilities are some of the most resilient and creative problem solvers I have ever met. The industry just needs to listen to them.

The Landscape and How to Fix It

Where do you believe the biggest gaps still exist in the broader travel industry, and what progress are you excited to see emerging globally?

The biggest gap is the people layer. From our focus groups, people interaction came back as the most common negative impact on the customer journey. Not the ramp, not the lift. The human in front of you. The industry’s hardest challenge is training and educating staff in a sector where turnover is significantly higher than most other service industries. COVID also shrank the pipeline of travel and tourism graduates. So you have a market that needs more capable people at exactly the moment the talent pool got smaller.

What I am excited to see emerging globally is destinations starting to think about inclusion at the precinct level, not just the property level. That is a real shift. When a whole region commits to lifting its maturity, the visitor experience changes fundamentally. That is the shift we are trying to accelerate in South East Queensland with AccessA.

What can be done to help providers practically improve the accessibility and inclusion of their products?

Most tourism operators genuinely want to become more inclusive—they simply aren’t always sure where to begin.

Our experience has shown that businesses benefit most from practical guidance rather than judgement. Small, achievable improvements often make a significant difference to the overall visitor experience.

Accessibility isn’t about trying to achieve perfection overnight. It’s about continuous improvement, listening to travellers, and recognising that every positive change makes travel more enjoyable for more people.

What would you say to travel providers who still underestimate the economic, social, and cultural value of inclusive design?

I’d encourage them to see accessibility not as an obligation but as an opportunity.

Inclusive design benefits far more people than many realise—older travellers, families, people recovering from injury, and anyone whose needs change during different stages of life.

Businesses that embrace inclusion are ultimately creating better experiences for all their guests while strengthening their reputation and long-term resilience.

What innovations, in technology, equipment, systems, policy, or training, have the potential to most dramatically improve accessible travel in the next decade?

Technology will undoubtedly play an increasingly important role in improving accessible travel, particularly by making reliable information easier to access and helping travellers plan with greater confidence.

However, technology alone is never enough.

The greatest opportunity still lies in people—well-trained staff who understand accessibility, communicate confidently and respond with empathy. A beautifully designed accessible room means very little if the guest arriving late at night is met by someone who doesn’t understand their needs.

The future belongs to destinations that combine thoughtful technology with genuinely inclusive service cultures.

Are there destinations or experiences where you feel true inclusion is already being done well?

Fiji might not be the first destination that comes to mind, and that is part of the point. The infrastructure is what it is, but Fijians have done a lot in recent years to promote accessibility, and the culture is what really stands out. They are some of the most genuinely inclusive people you will ever meet. They help everyone enjoy their country, even if it means physically carrying a wheelchair onto a boat so that person can go on the cruise. It is a reminder that inclusion is ultimately a culture, not a checklist. The best destinations marry both.

Closer to home, Brisbane is producing exactly the kind of experience that excites us and our customers. The Story Bridge now offers the world’s first accessible bridge climb, paired with the Vertigo Restaurant. An accessible flying fox crossing the Brisbane River is also in development. These are not adapted versions of an existing experience. They are flagship experiences, world-class in their own right, that everyone can enjoy. That is what inclusive design done well looks like. It does not produce a separate menu for people with disabilities. It produces a better menu for everyone.

Leadership, Purpose and the Human Side

What has building these three businesses taught you about leadership in a mission-driven space?

That mission and discipline are not opposites. The hardest thing about running a mission-driven business is staying disciplined when the mission is pulling you in ten directions at once. Every traveller’s story is compelling. Every regional operator who calls us is genuinely trying to do better. You have to be able to say no to good opportunities so you can say yes to the right ones.

Leadership in this space is also about hiring for genuine care and lived experience, not just skills. We can teach the process. We cannot teach someone to actually care whether a family had a good trip.

What keeps you motivated on the hard days, when logistics, systems, and realities push back against purpose?

The guest stories. Every time we deliver a complex trip and the family writes back to say their parent or child had an experience they never thought possible, that resets everything. The hard days are real. Equipment goes missing. A support worker calls in sick. A supplier fails on the day. One thank-you message from a family and the maths works out.

The other thing is the team. They have lived experience or close-to-home experience of disability. When I see them solving problems for a guest at 9pm on a Sunday, I know we are building the right kind of business.

When you reflect on your work so far, what are you most proud of?

Two things.

First, the team we have built. People who actually care, who have lived experience, who think like problem-solvers and not like ticket-bookers.

Second, the architecture we now have in place. Six years ago we were a single bespoke travel business hoping to help a few families a year. Today we have STX delivering for individuals, AccessibleOz positioning Australia globally, and AccessA preparing to lift entire regions. Each one earned the next. That progression is what I am proudest of, because it means the work outlives any individual trip.

Looking Forward

What is your long-term vision for STX, AccessibleOz, and AccessA?

To give everyone the opportunity to travel, in Australia or overseas, whoever they are and whatever they need. And to lift the maturity of the entire travel industry on accessibility and inclusion. Help providers improve. Support regions to become more inclusive. Make Australia a top accessible and inclusive destination, full stop.

We are based in Brisbane, so we feel a particular responsibility to make Queensland’s 2032 Games and the surrounding decade the most inclusive visitor experience the world has seen. That is the prize we are working towards.

How do you imagine their impact 5, 10, or even 20 years from now?

My hope is that, over the coming decade, Australia becomes recognised internationally as one of the world’s most inclusive travel destinations.

Success won’t be measured by individual projects or organisations. It will be reflected in travellers arriving with confidence, tourism businesses continually improving their accessibility, and destinations working collaboratively to create seamless visitor experiences.

Ultimately, I’d like accessibility to become something travellers simply expect—not something they have to research, question or worry about before every trip.

If you could change one thing about the travel world tomorrow to improve accessibility, what would it be?

Mandatory disability awareness training for every person working in travel and tourism. Not just frontline staff, everyone. Operations, sales, marketing, leadership. The whole industry. That single change would do more for the traveller experience than another decade of ramps and signs. Travel and tourism turnover is too high to leave training to chance. It has to be a sector-wide standard.

What do you want every traveller, disabled or not, to understand about inclusive travel?

You will need it at some point. Maybe not this trip, maybe not the next one. But every traveller hits a moment, an injury, a pregnancy, an ageing parent, a temporary disability, when the design choices of the travel industry start to matter to them personally. Inclusive travel is not for someone else. It is for all of us, just on a different timeline.

Quickfire

A moment on the road that reminded you why this work matters:  A woman in her fifties stepping off a plane in Cyprus to reunite with family she had not seen in 25 years. And a young teen para-athlete travelling interstate for the first time to compete.

A leader or thinker who inspires your approach to inclusion:  The travellers and families we work with. They have taught me more about resilience and creative problem-solving than any business book.

A quote you return to:  Nothing about us without us. Older than I am, and still the clearest single line on what inclusion actually requires.

Your definition of inclusive luxury:  A trip where nothing was compromised and everything just worked.

Closing

What do you hope readers of TILT take away from your story?

That Australia is genuinely accessible, and getting more so every year. That a small group of people in Brisbane is quietly building the infrastructure to make that real for international travellers and the regions hosting them. And that inclusive travel is not a niche product, it is the future shape of travel itself. The operators, destinations, and luxury brands who understand that early will define the next decade. TILT is one of the few publications that gets this, and that is why I am happy to have this conversation here.

And finally, what is the question no one ever asks you, but you wish they would?

How do we make this normal? Not special, not exceptional, just normal. That is the question I think about most. The whole industry is busy congratulating itself on small accessibility wins. The bigger ambition should be a travel experience where a traveller with access needs does not have to ask, does not have to flag themselves, does not have to be brave. They just travel. We are nowhere near that yet. But it is the question that should be driving every decision.

To learn more about Yann Charavel’s work supporting accessible and inclusive tourism across Australia, visit his professional channels or connect with him on LinkedIn.

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