Key Takeaways<\/h2>\n\n- After Morales\u2019s mobility changed in 2020, the inaccessibility of luxury travel surprised her. <\/li>\n
- A life-long trip planner, Morales joined Fora as a travel advisor and spearheaded its accessibility initiative. <\/li>\n
- The business pillar now boasts over 300 travel advisors and $75 million in bookings in less than a year.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n
\u201cTraveling and being a planner has been part of my identity my whole life,\u201d Karen Morales tells Entrepreneur<\/em>. Growing up, Morales plotted trips to Disney World; as an adult, she architected bachelorette trips and company travel during a career in advertising. But in 2020, Morales\u2019s perspective on planning her travel adventures shifted.\u00a0<\/p>\nImage Credit: Courtesy of Fora. Karen Morales.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nThe progression of her muscular dystrophy required her to start using a wheelchair. \u201c\u200aI tripped and fell during Covid,\u201d Morales recalls. \u201cI was homeschooling two elementary-age kids, baking brownies, doing Zooms, and I tripped on an area rug. It was not the huge swelling music moment that most people have, but all of a sudden, I couldn\u2019t go anywhere independently without a wheelchair.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Upgrading to luxury resorts didn\u2019t mean accessible travel<\/h2>\n
For the first couple of trips, Morales upgraded to very nice resorts, thinking that they\u2019d be able to accommodate her wheelchair. But they could not. During one stay in Hawaii \u2014 \u201cat a hotel we\u2019ve all heard of\u201d \u2014 they gave her a room upstairs and suggested she enter and exit through the lanai, a covered patio. But the door couldn\u2019t be locked from the outside. <\/p>\n
A similar scenario unfolded when she attended the opening of a spa in New England. She had to travel half a mile through a parking lot to avoid contending with 22 steps.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201c\u200aI just didn\u2019t understand this chasm is in the market,\u201d Morales says. \u201cThat all of a sudden if you need help, a little something extra, why is it expected that you either have pretty medium-level taste, like you can go to a Holiday Inn without problems, but if you want to do a five-star experience, there\u2019s a gap. I thought this cannot be real.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Her consulting business gave her a head start on all things travel<\/h2>\n
An entrepreneur at heart, Morales had the experience to make all aspects of travel accessible, including the luxury end. She\u2019d started a consulting business <\/strong>in 2017, and in planning her clients\u2019 corporate travel, also fielded questions about how to take grandmothers with limited mobility on safaris, or elderly people who\u2019d suffered strokes to Europe. She saw the potential for a sort of side hustle adjacent to her primary business.\u00a0<\/p>\nSo Morales began shopping around with different travel agencies. (It\u2019s similar to the way a real estate agent chooses an agency to join, she explains). When Morales stumbled upon the travel agency Fora<\/a>, her \u201cspidey sense\u201d went off.<\/p>\nFora has booked over $2 billion in travel since 2021<\/h2>\n
Co-founders Henley Vazquez, Evan Frank and Jake Peters launched Fora in 2021. Since then, the agency\u2019s global network of travel advisors has booked more than $2 billion in travel across over 180 countries.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Within a few weeks of Morales starting with the agency, the co-founders had her training other advisors on accessible travel. And after the first training call, they resolved to build out Fora\u2019s accessibility pillar in an official capacity.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe started quietly at first, just like every lean startup,\u201d Morales says. \u201cWe had a few of us that were paid to consult and spend a lot of time building training and developing our own lists of top hotels and properties around the world.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.entrepreneur.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/04\/Karen_pic.jpeg\")
Image Credit: Courtesy of Fora. Karen Morales. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\nMorales had visited nearly 50 countries by that point, and Judy Tudor, another Fora advisor who also uses a wheelchair, has been to more than 50 \u2014 which meant a lot of helpful data points.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Travel agents and suppliers learn more about the accessibility initiative<\/h2>\n
It wasn\u2019t surprising that a lot of agents wanted to get involved (after all, they\u2019ve answered hundreds and hundreds of questions about accessible travel), Morales says.\u00a0<\/p>\n
However, a pleasant twist was just how many luxury suppliers \u2014 hotels, resorts, etcetera \u2014 wanted to get in on the program.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201c\u200aThey\u2019re really looking to understand this market more,\u201d Morales says, \u201cwhich is beautiful. We\u2019ve had people offer to buy beach wheelchairs or ask for us to give them a review of how something really works. And I think that\u2019s how things change. It\u2019s about the actual hoteliers leaning in and saying, with true interest, How could I do this a little bit better?<\/em>\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\nIn training Fora\u2019s advisors on accessible travel, the first focus was mobility. But they branched out into other accommodations, like food allergies, even though this is a more difficult space to navigate. (For instance, it\u2019s relatively straightforward to track how many accessible rooms a hotel has. It\u2019s more difficult to gauge its responsiveness to a dairy or wheat allergy.) Still, despite the challenges, Fora\u2019s advisors now account for any accommodation possibility, including service animals.<\/p>\n
The issue of un-advertised accessibility accommodations<\/h2>\n
Fora\u2019s accessibility work also uncovered another critical point: Although some luxury hotels do lack fundamental accessibility features, others do <\/em>have them \u2014 they\u2019re just not advertised.\u00a0<\/p>\nFor example, Morales once spoke with a sales director who mentioned that she has a nonverbal granddaughter who communicates via tablet, and that the property she works with welcomes children in need of accommodations like that at their kids\u2019 club, and makes sure they\u2019re well integrated into the program.\u00a0<\/p>\n
That was news to Morales. No one would know that information without digging deeper, but some properties might be wary of leading with it amid fears of cancel culture, Morales says.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a feeling that we\u2019re going to get sued or in trouble if we get it wrong<\/em>,\u201d Morales explains. \u201cAnd that can\u2019t be our motto. In disability or in travel or in luxury, it has to be, let people do their best to welcome you in, and you make the decision on whether that is going to work for you or not. If we come at it with a really combative attitude, nothing\u2019s going to change.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\nTravel suppliers should prioritize inclusivity upfront<\/h2>\n
Instead, travel suppliers should focus on making every guest feel special and included upfront \u2014 and that means not being afraid to have important conversations early, ahead of challenges that arise in the moment.<\/p>\n
As a starting point, though, all properties should make sure their accessible rooms can be viewed easily on their website. That doesn\u2019t have to entail an expensive IT overhaul, either \u2014 even a simple landing page with a list of accessible offerings can go a long way, Morales says. Additionally, a property\u2019s ability to accommodate food allergies should be noted clearly online.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cLet\u2019s make it findable and searchable,\u201d Morales says. \u201cOtherwise, it doesn\u2019t give people a lot of confidence.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
That transparency and visibility should also include showing people with different abilities in marketing materials.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201c\u200aThere seems to be this bias that we just don\u2019t photograph as well, or it doesn\u2019t look as good in brand marketing,\u201d Morales says. \u201cBut people are traveling with wheelchairs and mobility devices, and it would be good to see some of that out in the world, even if it\u2019s just in the socials or in the stories that you read.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Fora\u2019s accessibility initiative has generated $75 million <\/h2>\n
With Morales at the helm, Fora\u2019s accessibility initiative has grown to include more than 300 advisors specializing in accessible travel and generating $75 million in accessible travel bookings.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But it\u2019s only the beginning, especially as the nearly 70 million Baby Boomers<\/a> continue to age. Baby Boomers hold about 50% of the wealth<\/a> in the U.S., and by 2030, all of them will be over 65 years old<\/a>. Many of them will want to spend their money on travel \u2014 and need accessibility accommodations to do it, Morales says.\u00a0<\/p>\n\u201c\u200aIf you are not catering to grandmas and grandpas, I don\u2019t know what you\u2019re doing,\u201d she adds. \u201cBecause they\u2019re not only traveling, but they\u2019re often bringing a three-generational troop of family members with them. I\u2019ve seen that in my own book of business this year. I\u2019m up about 300%. And it\u2019s all driven by celebratory trips, where grandparents need a little extra help.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Luxury accessible travel\u2019s growth and promising future <\/h2>\n
Morales looks forward to continuing to drive accessibility in the luxury travel space. What\u2019s more, she and Fora are in a unique position to show, as they already have, hotel brands the major growth potential in prioritizing accessibility \u2014 and how many devoted fans, eager to spread the word, they stand to gain.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201c\u200aWe\u2019re also in a really unique position to give a lot of caretakers and people like myself who have this lived experience the chance to really have a career in travel,\u201d Morales says. \u201cAnd help people [in need of accommodations] do what they already do anyway. There is nothing more fulfilling.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
\n\nKey Takeaways<\/h2>\n\n- After Morales\u2019s mobility changed in 2020, the inaccessibility of luxury travel surprised her. <\/li>\n
- A life-long trip planner, Morales joined Fora as a travel advisor and spearheaded its accessibility initiative. <\/li>\n
- The business pillar now boasts over 300 travel advisors and $75 million in bookings in less than a year.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n
\u201cTraveling and being a planner has been part of my identity my whole life,\u201d Karen Morales tells Entrepreneur<\/em>. Growing up, Morales plotted trips to Disney World; as an adult, she architected bachelorette trips and company travel during a career in advertising. But in 2020, Morales\u2019s perspective on planning her travel adventures shifted.\u00a0<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.entrepreneur.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/04\/Karen-headshot-white.jpg?w=731\")
Image Credit: Courtesy of Fora. Karen Morales.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nThe progression of her muscular dystrophy required her to start using a wheelchair. \u201c\u200aI tripped and fell during Covid,\u201d Morales recalls. \u201cI was homeschooling two elementary-age kids, baking brownies, doing Zooms, and I tripped on an area rug. It was not the huge swelling music moment that most people have, but all of a sudden, I couldn\u2019t go anywhere independently without a wheelchair.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Upgrading to luxury resorts didn\u2019t mean accessible travel<\/h2>\n
For the first couple of trips, Morales upgraded to very nice resorts, thinking that they\u2019d be able to accommodate her wheelchair. But they could not. During one stay in Hawaii \u2014 \u201cat a hotel we\u2019ve all heard of\u201d \u2014 they gave her a room upstairs and suggested she enter and exit through the lanai, a covered patio. But the door couldn\u2019t be locked from the outside. <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
\u201cTraveling and being a planner has been part of my identity my whole life,\u201d Karen Morales tells Entrepreneur<\/em>. Growing up, Morales plotted trips to Disney World; as an adult, she architected bachelorette trips and company travel during a career in advertising. But in 2020, Morales\u2019s perspective on planning her travel adventures shifted.\u00a0<\/p>\n The progression of her muscular dystrophy required her to start using a wheelchair. \u201c\u200aI tripped and fell during Covid,\u201d Morales recalls. \u201cI was homeschooling two elementary-age kids, baking brownies, doing Zooms, and I tripped on an area rug. It was not the huge swelling music moment that most people have, but all of a sudden, I couldn\u2019t go anywhere independently without a wheelchair.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n For the first couple of trips, Morales upgraded to very nice resorts, thinking that they\u2019d be able to accommodate her wheelchair. But they could not. During one stay in Hawaii \u2014 \u201cat a hotel we\u2019ve all heard of\u201d \u2014 they gave her a room upstairs and suggested she enter and exit through the lanai, a covered patio. But the door couldn\u2019t be locked from the outside. <\/p>\n A similar scenario unfolded when she attended the opening of a spa in New England. She had to travel half a mile through a parking lot to avoid contending with 22 steps.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201c\u200aI just didn\u2019t understand this chasm is in the market,\u201d Morales says. \u201cThat all of a sudden if you need help, a little something extra, why is it expected that you either have pretty medium-level taste, like you can go to a Holiday Inn without problems, but if you want to do a five-star experience, there\u2019s a gap. I thought this cannot be real.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n An entrepreneur at heart, Morales had the experience to make all aspects of travel accessible, including the luxury end. She\u2019d started a consulting business <\/strong>in 2017, and in planning her clients\u2019 corporate travel, also fielded questions about how to take grandmothers with limited mobility on safaris, or elderly people who\u2019d suffered strokes to Europe. She saw the potential for a sort of side hustle adjacent to her primary business.\u00a0<\/p>\n So Morales began shopping around with different travel agencies. (It\u2019s similar to the way a real estate agent chooses an agency to join, she explains). When Morales stumbled upon the travel agency Fora<\/a>, her \u201cspidey sense\u201d went off.<\/p>\n Co-founders Henley Vazquez, Evan Frank and Jake Peters launched Fora in 2021. Since then, the agency\u2019s global network of travel advisors has booked more than $2 billion in travel across over 180 countries.\u00a0<\/p>\n Within a few weeks of Morales starting with the agency, the co-founders had her training other advisors on accessible travel. And after the first training call, they resolved to build out Fora\u2019s accessibility pillar in an official capacity.<\/p>\n \u201cWe started quietly at first, just like every lean startup,\u201d Morales says. \u201cWe had a few of us that were paid to consult and spend a lot of time building training and developing our own lists of top hotels and properties around the world.\u201d<\/p>\n Morales had visited nearly 50 countries by that point, and Judy Tudor, another Fora advisor who also uses a wheelchair, has been to more than 50 \u2014 which meant a lot of helpful data points.\u00a0<\/p>\n It wasn\u2019t surprising that a lot of agents wanted to get involved (after all, they\u2019ve answered hundreds and hundreds of questions about accessible travel), Morales says.\u00a0<\/p>\n However, a pleasant twist was just how many luxury suppliers \u2014 hotels, resorts, etcetera \u2014 wanted to get in on the program.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201c\u200aThey\u2019re really looking to understand this market more,\u201d Morales says, \u201cwhich is beautiful. We\u2019ve had people offer to buy beach wheelchairs or ask for us to give them a review of how something really works. And I think that\u2019s how things change. It\u2019s about the actual hoteliers leaning in and saying, with true interest, How could I do this a little bit better?<\/em>\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n In training Fora\u2019s advisors on accessible travel, the first focus was mobility. But they branched out into other accommodations, like food allergies, even though this is a more difficult space to navigate. (For instance, it\u2019s relatively straightforward to track how many accessible rooms a hotel has. It\u2019s more difficult to gauge its responsiveness to a dairy or wheat allergy.) Still, despite the challenges, Fora\u2019s advisors now account for any accommodation possibility, including service animals.<\/p>\n Fora\u2019s accessibility work also uncovered another critical point: Although some luxury hotels do lack fundamental accessibility features, others do <\/em>have them \u2014 they\u2019re just not advertised.\u00a0<\/p>\n For example, Morales once spoke with a sales director who mentioned that she has a nonverbal granddaughter who communicates via tablet, and that the property she works with welcomes children in need of accommodations like that at their kids\u2019 club, and makes sure they\u2019re well integrated into the program.\u00a0<\/p>\n That was news to Morales. No one would know that information without digging deeper, but some properties might be wary of leading with it amid fears of cancel culture, Morales says.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a feeling that we\u2019re going to get sued or in trouble if we get it wrong<\/em>,\u201d Morales explains. \u201cAnd that can\u2019t be our motto. In disability or in travel or in luxury, it has to be, let people do their best to welcome you in, and you make the decision on whether that is going to work for you or not. If we come at it with a really combative attitude, nothing\u2019s going to change.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Instead, travel suppliers should focus on making every guest feel special and included upfront \u2014 and that means not being afraid to have important conversations early, ahead of challenges that arise in the moment.<\/p>\n As a starting point, though, all properties should make sure their accessible rooms can be viewed easily on their website. That doesn\u2019t have to entail an expensive IT overhaul, either \u2014 even a simple landing page with a list of accessible offerings can go a long way, Morales says. Additionally, a property\u2019s ability to accommodate food allergies should be noted clearly online.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cLet\u2019s make it findable and searchable,\u201d Morales says. \u201cOtherwise, it doesn\u2019t give people a lot of confidence.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n That transparency and visibility should also include showing people with different abilities in marketing materials.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201c\u200aThere seems to be this bias that we just don\u2019t photograph as well, or it doesn\u2019t look as good in brand marketing,\u201d Morales says. \u201cBut people are traveling with wheelchairs and mobility devices, and it would be good to see some of that out in the world, even if it\u2019s just in the socials or in the stories that you read.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n With Morales at the helm, Fora\u2019s accessibility initiative has grown to include more than 300 advisors specializing in accessible travel and generating $75 million in accessible travel bookings.\u00a0<\/p>\n But it\u2019s only the beginning, especially as the nearly 70 million Baby Boomers<\/a> continue to age. Baby Boomers hold about 50% of the wealth<\/a> in the U.S., and by 2030, all of them will be over 65 years old<\/a>. Many of them will want to spend their money on travel \u2014 and need accessibility accommodations to do it, Morales says.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201c\u200aIf you are not catering to grandmas and grandpas, I don\u2019t know what you\u2019re doing,\u201d she adds. \u201cBecause they\u2019re not only traveling, but they\u2019re often bringing a three-generational troop of family members with them. I\u2019ve seen that in my own book of business this year. I\u2019m up about 300%. And it\u2019s all driven by celebratory trips, where grandparents need a little extra help.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Morales looks forward to continuing to drive accessibility in the luxury travel space. What\u2019s more, she and Fora are in a unique position to show, as they already have, hotel brands the major growth potential in prioritizing accessibility \u2014 and how many devoted fans, eager to spread the word, they stand to gain.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201c\u200aWe\u2019re also in a really unique position to give a lot of caretakers and people like myself who have this lived experience the chance to really have a career in travel,\u201d Morales says. \u201cAnd help people [in need of accommodations] do what they already do anyway. There is nothing more fulfilling.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n \u201cTraveling and being a planner has been part of my identity my whole life,\u201d Karen Morales tells Entrepreneur<\/em>. Growing up, Morales plotted trips to Disney World; as an adult, she architected bachelorette trips and company travel during a career in advertising. But in 2020, Morales\u2019s perspective on planning her travel adventures shifted.\u00a0<\/p>\n The progression of her muscular dystrophy required her to start using a wheelchair. \u201c\u200aI tripped and fell during Covid,\u201d Morales recalls. \u201cI was homeschooling two elementary-age kids, baking brownies, doing Zooms, and I tripped on an area rug. It was not the huge swelling music moment that most people have, but all of a sudden, I couldn\u2019t go anywhere independently without a wheelchair.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n For the first couple of trips, Morales upgraded to very nice resorts, thinking that they\u2019d be able to accommodate her wheelchair. But they could not. During one stay in Hawaii \u2014 \u201cat a hotel we\u2019ve all heard of\u201d \u2014 they gave her a room upstairs and suggested she enter and exit through the lanai, a covered patio. But the door couldn\u2019t be locked from the outside. <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\nUpgrading to luxury resorts didn\u2019t mean accessible travel<\/h2>\n
Her consulting business gave her a head start on all things travel<\/h2>\n
Fora has booked over $2 billion in travel since 2021<\/h2>\n
Travel agents and suppliers learn more about the accessibility initiative<\/h2>\n
The issue of un-advertised accessibility accommodations<\/h2>\n
Travel suppliers should prioritize inclusivity upfront<\/h2>\n
Fora\u2019s accessibility initiative has generated $75 million <\/h2>\n
Luxury accessible travel\u2019s growth and promising future <\/h2>\n
Key Takeaways<\/h2>\n
\n
Upgrading to luxury resorts didn\u2019t mean accessible travel<\/h2>\n