About Me

Dr. Scott Rains writes daily on travel and issues of interest to people with disabilities occurring in the tourism industry at www.RollingRains.com His research on the topic of Universal Design and the travel and hospitality industry has included appointment as Resident Scholar at the Center for Cultural Studies of the University of California Santa Cruz (2004-05). He was consultant on accessible tourism for the September 2007 DPI World Assembly on the U. N. Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in Seoul, South Korea. He currently assists the Instituto Interamericano sobre Deficiência e Desenvolvimento Inclusivo – IIDI in the development of accessible cruise infrastructure in Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay. He writes a bi-weekly column at [with]TV ( http://withtv.typepad.com/weblog/travel/) and formerly edited the Travel and Disability section at Suite101.com. Rains’ articles have also appeared in Emerging Horizons, New Mobility, Contours, Accessible Portugal, Audacity, Travel and Transitions, eTur Brazil, and Turismo Polibea among other magazines. Professional presentations include: * Keynote address, "Global Trends in Accessible Tourism" at the Second International Accessible Tourism Conference Bangkok, Thailand (2007) * Pre-conference workshop on travel and Universal Design at the Adaptive Environments Conference in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (2005) * Keynote address, "The Global reach of Inclusive Tourism", at the first International Accessible Tourism Conference in Taipei, Taiwan (2005) * Plenary presentation at the NICAN conference on Inclusive Travel in Perth, Australia (2004) Rains’ scholarly work includes editorship of the first body of research on travel and disability in the field of Disability Studies with the publication of the 2006 (Vol. 2 Issue 2) of the Review of Disability Studies. He has been invited to edit a follow-up volume after contributing to the Disability Studies Quarterly on travel and disability(March 2007). Dr. Rains consults with travel agents and tour operators worldwide. He is currently working with a three-nation accessible tourism consortium (Turismo para Todos) in South America and assisting the Brazilian government in the formation of maritime tourism policy. Excerpts from his daily column in the Rolling Rains Report on Travel, Disability & Universal Design ( www.RollingRains.com) are included in the book on travel marketing, "Tips from the T-List."