A verified map of places that actually work

What we understood

You are building something that does not exist yet: an accessibility rating that someone has physically checked. Your team visits each hotel, tours a room, and measures what actually matters — bed height, the width of the bathroom door, whether there is a step at the entrance, whether a wheelchair can turn in the room, whether there are rails through the common areas. That inspection produces a level of accessibility rather than a pass or fail, so partners are ranked instead of rejected.

The people who need this are wider than the term "accessible travel" suggests: wheelchair users, seniors, veterans, neurodivergent travellers, and families who have just been handed a diagnosis and no longer know how to get a parent into a car, let alone onto a plane.

"Nobody wants to sit here and think, there's an app just for me. I want them to think it's just as fun."

That is why the app is a map you play rather than a directory you search: hotels, tours and activities across a world map, points for exploring, and an explanation of why a place is rated the way it is. A plain reading view sits alongside it for anyone who wants the information without the game.

Three ways to start

You told us the board would rather build a good foundation than pay twice to fix a cheap one. These options are built that way: each one is a complete, working product on the same foundation, so the next stage adds to it instead of replacing it. Start wherever the budget allows.

1. Option one — the pilot map

   4 to 6 weeks · the leanest version that still proves the idea

   • An accessible website with your mission, the rating system, your training programmes, and a place to publish guides for families new to all this.
   • A public map plus a searchable list of your first rated places, with a detail page for each one showing what your team measured.
   • An inspection form your team fills in on a tablet or phone while walking a property, feeding straight into the site.
   • Hosted on our own infrastructure, using open map data, so there are no map licence fees and no server for your team to manage.

   $3,000 – $6,000

   $4,300 – $8,600 at our standard rates. Enough to launch Tampa Bay, show partners something real, and support a grant application.

2. Option two — the working platform

   8 to 12 weeks · recommended if the board can reach it

   • Everything in option one, plus the full rating rubric: entrance, room, bathroom, common areas, and sensory or cognitive factors scored separately before rolling into an overall level.
   • A proper inspection tool with photos, measurements and offline use, which calculates the level for you and keeps a record of every visit.
   • Traveller filtering, so a power chair user and someone travelling with a parent with dementia each see what matters to them first.
   • An admin area where your team adds places, edits ratings and publishes articles without calling us.
   • Profile pages for partner hotels, ready to be used as the stamp of approval you described.

   $7,000 – $14,000

   $10,000 – $20,000 at our standard rates. This is the version that scales past a few dozen properties without rework.

3. Option three — add the game

   Later, once the map has places on it

   • The map becomes something you explore: points for places visited and rated, badges to collect, and short explanations of why a place earned its level.
   • A plain reading view alongside it, for anyone who wants the information without the game.
   • Installable on iPhone and Android from a single build, with no app store fees or review delays.

   $6,000 – $15,000

   $8,600 – $21,400 at our standard rates. Can be added in small pieces — points first, badges next — rather than funded all at once.

The hotel partner portal, the certification badges and the online training programmes come after this, and are worth scoping only once partnerships are signed. Separate native apps are rarely worth their cost for an audience this size; we would rather spend that money on more inspected places.

Ways to pay for it

Nonprofit budgets rarely allow a single payment, so pick whichever of these fits how your funding arrives.

Milestones

A third to begin, a third when the design is approved, a third at launch. Standard, and the cheapest overall.

Monthly build plan

Spread the cost of any option over six to twelve months at no extra charge, starting with a small deposit. Option one works out around $400 to $700 a month; option two around $700 to $1,200. Work starts immediately.

Build as you go

A fixed monthly amount and we keep building, feature by feature, for as long as you fund it. Nothing large to approve, and it suits organisations waiting on grant cycles.

Nonprofit discount

30% off our standard rates, already applied to every figure above. It holds for all three options and for anything added later.

Funding the build

This is the part most organisations in your position get stuck on, so it is worth saying plainly: we can help you pay for this. Our umbrella company, TARA Learning, helps find and collaborate on grant applications for nonprofits, and accessibility technology is a well-funded category right now. A platform that physically verifies accessibility and publishes the results is a strong application: it has a measurable output, an under-served population, and a clear public benefit.

What that looks like in practice is a funding plan alongside the build plan. We identify the programmes you qualify for, prepare the applications, and supply the technical detail funders ask for — scope, timeline, costs, and how impact will be measured — using this proposal as the basis. You get a written record of the project that serves both your board and your funders.

Because the options above are staged, a modest first grant can fund the pilot map, and the working platform it proves can then support a larger application. Funders are far more willing to back a project that already exists in some form.

Other ways to reduce what you pay

• Write the copy and supply photos yourselves, and the build stays at the low end of every range.
• Nonprofits get most software at a heavy discount through TechSoup and Google for Nonprofits.
• A hotel or airline partner may sponsor the build outright in exchange for being named a founding partner.
• University computer science programmes take on capstone projects like the game layer at no cost. We are happy to supervise that work so it fits the platform properly.

Hosting and your data

Everything runs on our infrastructure, which we maintain. That means the database of inspected properties, the photos your team takes on site and the website itself all sit behind our backups, updates and monitoring — no server administration falls to your staff or your volunteers.

Your inspection data is the asset your organisation is building, so it stays yours. We hold it in trust, we do not sell it or share it, and you can request a complete export at any time. The monthly hosting figure below covers all of this in one predictable line item, which tends to be easier to budget than separate hosting, domain and support bills.

Accessibility is part of the build, not an extra

An accessible travel platform cannot ship an inaccessible product. Everything we build is tested against WCAG 2.2 level AA: full keyboard operation, screen reader support, text that scales without breaking the layout, contrast that holds up in sunlight, no meaning carried by colour alone, and plain language throughout. We also budget for testing with real users across mobility, vision, hearing and cognitive needs, because a checklist cannot tell you that your own map is confusing.

What changes the price

What we need from you

• Your inspection criteria as they stand today, even if they are handwritten notes from your board.
• Data from the hotels you have already visited, so the map is not empty on launch day.
• One decision maker we can reach between board meetings.
• Logo, brand colours and any photography you have the rights to use.

Open questions for the board

How many accessibility levels, and what are they called?

Naming a level "low" may make partnerships harder than naming what it does support. Worth deciding before anything is published.

Which city comes first?

We suggest launching Tampa Bay properly rather than the whole country thinly. An empty map is the biggest risk to this kind of product.

Where does the market figure come from?

The $58.2 billion in annual spending and 13.4% growth rate are powerful numbers, and funders will ask for their source. We should attach the original citation before they appear in public material or an application.

Next steps

• Your board reviews this ahead of the meeting and picks a starting option and a payment plan.
• If funding is the constraint, tell us at the meeting and we will bring a shortlist of grant programmes you qualify for.
• We meet again on Wednesday 23 September to confirm the scope and fix a firm price.
• On approval, we start with the rating rubric and the inspection form, so your team can be collecting data while the site is being built.