Virgin Holidays to offer ‘autism-friendly’ packages

[AGXStarseed]

(Not written by me)


Virgin Holidays is going to be offering new ‘autism-friendly’ packages.

According to the Independent, the travel company has been in touch with a major autism charity to try and put together holidays that are specially designed for families with autistic children.

They’re apparently looking at providing special training for staff in selected locations, and are going to provide detailed information for travellers so that they can be as prepared as possible.

Jo-Ann D’Costa-Manuel, founder and director of Autism Parent Empower, told the paper: ‘I’d love to be able to see in their brochures that they have a little icon that identifies where is autism-friendly.

‘Families can pick destinations and know there’s lots of things in place to support them while they’re there.’

Virgin Holidays added that it wanted to ‘enhance our provisions for families with autism throughout their entire holiday’.

And Virgin Atlantic, Richard Branson’s airline, already allows families to go to a training rig, where they can ‘check in’ and sit inside a mock interior of a plane.

This is so they have a chance to get used to the new surroundings before flying.

Around 1.1% of the British population – around 700,000 people – have a form of autism.


Source: Virgin Holidays to offer 'autism-friendly' packages

 

[toothless]

its an awesome idea,i knew virgin already did offer autistic children things like booking in first [something like that] and now theyre going to make autism friendly packages which i will even take a look at as it interests me, although to be fair virgin are mega expensive so whether i will be able to save the money or not remains to be seen.
anyway my other point,they only ever focus on children,i hope the packages also identify the needs of adult autistics to,such as picking places with quiet bars that dont have strobe lighting [a common cause of sensory overload in autistics] it reminds me of cinemas who do so called autism friendly screenings but only show films mainly designed for children like trolls or happy feet,i love cartoons more than any other form but i also like some '15s' and '18s' to, its like they think we are forever children.