MindforYou has partnered with OTA DisabledHolidays.com to “bring the company to a wider audience” in the UK.

The OTA booked 4,000 travellers last year and has now begun offering seven domestic trips for sufferers of the illness, including week-long stays in the Peak District, Norfolk and Scotland, after the programme was launched during Dementia Awareness Week, which ran from May 15-21.

DisabledHolidays.com product development and property recruitment manager Bethany Nadin told TTG how selling the tour provider and working with its co-founder Carol Sargent, whose mother has dementia, had enabled the Worldchoice member to broaden its knowledge and product offering.

“Carol contacted us back in February and explained that MindforYou was looking to expand.

It wasn’t something we had a lot of confidence in selling so she came down for a meeting and helped us get a better understanding of what it was a traveller with dementia needed,” Nadin said.

“She’s coming back this month to give all our staff dementia awareness training, which is brilliant and means we can provide an even better service.”

Nadin said the demand for disabled-friendly getaways was illustrated by the Lancashire-based agency’s own expansion, which has grown from three to 40 staff over five years, proving that the trade should be increasing its offerings for the market.

“Every day we’re getting more and more people calling up about our holidays and we get a lot of repeat bookings. I’d say about 90% of our customers has a disability themselves and we also take bookings from families who have children with special needs,” she added.

“Getting the trade more involved in providing travel for disabled people is definitely something we’ve been pushing for. Quite often our staff visit high street stores to help give some tips on booking for disabled travellers and the more information that’s out there, the better.”