- Traveleyes
Traveleyes is the world’s first commercial international air tour operator (as distinct from a charity) to specialise in serving blind as well as sighted travellers. Established in
2005 , the company is based inLeeds ,West Yorkshire .Traveleyes Holidays
Each holiday group includes an equal number of blind/partially-sighted and sighted individuals. Blind travellers pair daily with different sighted ones, and the sighted traveller describes the sights to their blind partner. The role of the sighted individual is to be a fellow traveller and not to act as a carer. Sighted travellers receive a discount on the price of their holiday in return for this ‘use of their eyes’.
Although based in the
UK , Traveleyes now takes bookings fromthe US ,Canada ,Australia ,New Zealand and indeed all parts of the world.Lonely Planet Guides
As well as acting as a holiday operator, Traveleyes works in conjunction with
Lonely Planet travel guides to produce specially formatted travel guides for blind and visually impaired travellers [ [http://traveleyes.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=26&Itemid=37 Traveleyes - Products ] ] [ [http://www.travelconnect.co.uk/showNews.aspx?loadid=00699 TravelConnect - Independent Travel for Visually Impaired ] ] . The specially formatted guides are produced on CD, and run on PCs and PDAs, through speech programmes and magnification software. Guides are currently available forMalta ,Morocco ,California ,Italy ,Cuba ,Crete ,Canada , andAndalucía [ [http://traveleyes.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=26&Itemid=37 Traveleyes - Products ] ] .Amar Latif
Traveleyes was founded by blind entrepreneur, television actor, director and world traveller
Amar Latif . Amar inherited the incurable eye conditionRetinitis Pigmentosa , which led, by the age of 20, to 95% sight loss. As well as founding and directing Traveleyes, Amar often acts as tour guide for the holiday groups. He was awarded the inauguralStelios Disabled Entrepreneur Award in2007 for his work with Traveleyes. This award is presented byEasyJet founder SirStelios Haji-Ioannou in partnership with the charityLeonard Cheshire Disability [ [http://www.easy.com/stelios/DEYA.html easy.com : Stelios : the Stelios disabled entrepreneur award ] ] . He was also declared the ‘Outstanding Young Business Entrepreneur of the World’ in 2005 by the Chamber of Commerce International (JCI) [ [http://www.jci.cc/members/news.php?lang_id=1&info_id=5479&t=3010 JCI ] ] .External links
*cite web| title =Traveleyes| url =http://www.traveleyes.co.uk| accessdate =2008-01-29
*cite web| title =Amar Latif| url =http://www.amarlatif.co.uk | accessdate =2008-01-29References
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