Passport to everywhere; Why one travel firm’s an inspiration

WHEN Amar Latif set up business as a tour operator in Leeds five years ago he was determined to get to grips with one travel issue that was close to his heart.

Victim of an incurable eye condition that left him with a 95% sight loss by the time he was 20, Latif is committed to providing travel solutions for blind and visually impaired as well as sighted travellers.

“I’m blind and very independent, and I love to travel. What’s more I know that there are a lot of other people like me out there,” he explains.

“People whose limited sight shouldn’t mean they have to settle for limited horizons when it comes to holidays and travel. All too often blind and visually impaired people have to depend on their families or close friends for their holiday arrangements so I wanted to offer them the freedom and choice of sighted holidaymakers. It was about seeing the possibilities rather than the limitations for blind travellers that inspired me to set up Traveleyes.”

Traveleyes is a unique agency that pairs sighted travellers with blind travellers on holidays and breaks all over the world from Paris to Peru.

Its visually impaired clients tend to be very independent and outgoing people and the sighted travellers who accompany them are not minders but engaging travel companions who describe the sights and explain the sounds that they are experiencing.

Says Latif: “Our sighted clients, who get a discount for the ‘use of their eyes’ get as much out of it as everyone else, as they find it not only enjoyable but a very enriching holiday experience.”

He now oversees a small dedicated team who organise up to 20 tours a year covering everything from unique exploratory holidays to relaxing sunshine breaks.
Word has quickly spread about the tours and accordingly business has expanded. In fact, the Traveleyes tours have become so popular with both visually impaired and sighted clients that available places are snapped up almost as soon as they appear on the website.

Now the tours are attracting interest from overseas as members from all over the world sign up to the Traveleyes website. Clients are eager to join the tour groups from as far away as the US and Canada.

To help meet overseas demand Latif has recruited the help of UK Trade & Investment (UKTI), which has been supporting the company’s overseas expansion with its range of export services such as Passport to Export.

“Some of the funding we received under the Passport programme is now helping us to develop our website for the international market,” says Latif.

“For instance we are hoping to include footage on the site from our upcoming trip to South Africa.

“I have also used UKTI’s market screening service to explore possibilities in the USA, Canada and the Netherlands. Now I am focusing on a trip to the US sometime in May where I am hoping to make presentations to various organizations for the visually impaired. For this project UKTI is helping me apply for funding from Yorkshire Forward’s Targeted Export Support Scheme (TESS). ”

Latif’s work in broadening world travel opportunities for fellow blind travellers has attracted a lot of attention.

Proving that blindness is no impediment to adventure and exploration, he was recently seen by millions around the world when he successfully completed a gruelling 220 mile trek across the Nicaraguan jungle and scaled a 5,000 foot volcano in BBC 2’s ‘Beyond Boundaries’.

Traveleyes also works with Lonely Planet to produce specially formatted travel guides for the blind and visually impaired.