Episode 12 - Jen Clark: How Heartful is Redefining Accessible Accommodation

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Transcript

Maddy: This podcast is recorded on the lands of the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nations. We pay our respects to the traditional custodians of this country and elders, past and present. We extend our respects to any First Nations, Aboriginal, and Torres Strait Islander people joining us today.

Welcome to today's episode of No Spoons to Give, the podcast where we explore life's up and downs with neurodivergence, chronic illness, and disability, and chat with the voices that make our community so wonderful.

How are you going today, Larissa?

Larissa: I'm good, Maddy. How are you going?

Maddy: I'm good. Tired but still kicking.

Larissa: Love that. I think it's, yeah, probably about time for a coffee, but we will push through.

Maddy: Yes, we can make it through.

Do you have any recommendations for today?

Larissa: I do, actually, and for today's recommendation, I've reached out to our lovely Spoony community, and one of our users, AuDHDb, shout out to that user, thank you for sharing this with me, by the way. It's a book called Different, Not Less, by Chloé Hayden, and it's a neurodivergent person's guide to embracing their true self. AuDHDb has also recommended the audiobook, so I will definitely be giving that a listen because we all know how much I love an audiobook.

Maddy: Yes, audiobooks are fantastic. I'll have to check that out, too. That sounds great.

Larissa: For sure.

Maddy: Love having a recommendation from our community.

In shocking news to everyone, I do have a book to recommend, but it's a graphic novel, so it counts as something different. It's called 'Eventually Everything Connects' by Sarah Firth. It's an honest and pretty profound graphic novel that's a collection of interconnected visual essays about the joys and pains of living in a complex and uncertain world. Sarah Firth is a neurodivergent artist and writer, and the book is written in a delightfully nonlinear way that matches the way that her brain works.

Larissa: I love that. I feel like as a fellow neurodivergent brain, it would probably make complete sense to my brain.

Maddy: It was very soothing to read. I was like, "This makes sense to go in this direction." I loved it. Yeah.

Larissa: Well, that sounds great. I will definitely have to check that one out.

Maddy: Today, we're joined by Jen Clarke, the founder of Heartful, Australia's new sustainable and accessible short-term accommodation booking platform where everyone is welcome.

Larissa: Finding travel and accommodation options as a disabled, chronically ill, or neurodivergent person is something we often see our community face challenges with. We all deserve to be able to explore the world and enjoy the benefits of travel, and with nearly half of Australia living with a chronic illness or disability, the need for an accessible and sustainable travel option has never been greater.

Maddy: Jen, can you tell us a little bit about Heartful and where your fantastic idea came from?

Jen: Yeah, thank you so much, guys, and look, thank you very much for having me today. Congratulations on launching this podcast. It's obviously a really fantastic initiative, so big kudos to you on that.

Larissa: Thank you.

Maddy: Thank you.

Jen: Yeah, look, where do I start? So I had a bit of a career change six or seven years ago when I moved from Melbourne to the Macedon Ranges, which is about an hour northwest of Melbourne. Moved out here with my small family, so my partner and our then two-year-old son. And when I moved out here after having spent my whole professional life in design, so I worked as a graphic designer for about 20 years, I decided to have a bit of a career change. I noticed that there was, obviously that this region was incredibly beautiful and that there were a lot of tourists coming up here, but that there were a real lack of places to stay.

So I decided, being my typical ADHD self, to launch a new business, which was a short-term accommodation management business, and launched that in 2019. And at the same time I actually launched a podcast.So I wanted to find out more about other people's experiences managing short-term accommodation, and I thought a podcast was a really great way to do that. So I launched those two things simultaneously.

And as I was growing the business and obviously hosting the podcast, a couple of things became increasingly obvious to me, and that was that there was a real lack of focus in this sector on both accessibility and sustainability. Even in the guests that were staying in the properties that I managed, we were often getting requests for particular features in the properties that just weren't there, and I found that quite frustrating. And similarly, there was a lot of waste going on. So we would see people, we would throw out so much excess food and just see every single week a heap of waste and also just in terms of the amenities that we were going through, all of that sort of thing. So I thought "There's got to be a way to do this better."

And anyway, in 2021, actually no, it was 2022. Sorry, my mistake. I decided to launch a very simple directory on the website of the podcast, an accommodation directory of, I guess, of people and properties who shared that same ethos as me or same concern as me, I should say, and who wanted to focus on making the sector more environmentally and socially responsible. And the response I got to setting up that directory was really phenomenal. So we had a lot of people that were very interested in listing, and I got to the point where I sort of thought, "Well, I can either sort of go hard or go home, I guess here, and I can try and grow this directory or we can create something even bigger and better."

And that's basically how Heartful was born. And the name Heartful actually comes from, well, it's derived from Hosting with Heart, which is the name of my podcast. We'd often refer to hosts who shared that kind of focus on sustainability and accessibility as being heartful hosts, hence the name.

Maddy: Oh, I love that. That's such a lovely way to describe hosts who are socially and environmentally responsible. I love that phrase as well. It's so true.

Jen: Yeah. Yeah, look, it was tricky actually coming up with a name for the platform because we wanted to come up with something that really spoke to what the ethos was, and we went through so many names, but that particular name was short and simple, and it stuck, and I thought it really did encapsulate what the site was going to be all about, so it was a good fit.

Larissa: Absolutely. It's one of those very memorable names as well.

Jen: Yeah.

Larissa: Yeah.

Jen: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.

Maddy: So I was wondering what are some of the barriers that the disabled, chronically ill, and neurodivergent community have experienced when trying to experience travel? I know that you've probably heard a lot of stories and met with a lot of people who have struggled with this.

Jen: Oh, look, absolutely. And if I was to go through all of the barriers that exist, we'd probably be here all day.

Maddy: All night as well, probably.

Jen: That's right. There are so many that exist, sadly. I think, to look at some of the more common barriers, in general, there's very little focus on accessibility really, if you look at the whole accommodation sector. So I think when it was last assessed, and that was back in 2013, that it was found that there was about four percent of holiday accommodation in Australia that could be called accessible.

Larissa: Wow.

Maddy: Wow.

Jen: Which is so tiny. And even then, the parameters for defining it as accessible were pretty limited. They were really focused on physical disabilities and wheelchair use and that sort of thing, not looking at the broader spectrum of what it means to be disabled or chronically ill. So yeah, that's really quite awful. I think that, just to talk to that point, I think one of the biggest barriers is the focus on physical disabilities.

So you'll see a lot of, I mean, there are platforms out there both in Australia and further abroad that focus on showcasing accessible travel options, but they're often really focused on that, those physical barriers.So a lot of them even have wheelchair symbols in their logo and that sort of thing. So that's one thing. I think we need to make the focus a lot broader.

Lack of training of staff and of operators. I think people just don't really have the awareness of what it means to actually provide accessible accommodation and how kind of individualistic that needs to be. So what's accessible for one person may not be for another, and those sorts of things. I think just there's a general sort of lack of respect in many cases for just basic dignities. I've heard so many times stories of people who may have a physical impairment or disability of some kind, having to not drink on a plane, for instance, because they may need to use the toilet, things like that because they can't get to the toilet. These sorts of things, they shouldn't be happening. We're in 2025 now. It shouldn't be that if you are a disabled person travelling on a plane that you go without food and drink for the duration of a flight because you can't get to the toilet safely or in a way that's dignified. That's just ridiculous.

I think the amount of time that disabled travellers have to spend researching and looking into options and planning. I mean, one of the things we did when we first set up Heartful was to go out to the disabled and chronically ill travelling community and ask them what some of those barriers were, and we got that response very loudly and clearly that people were really over having to spend so much time deep diving where they were going to stay and how they were going to travel and those sorts of things.

Yeah. Look, I think another thing, a big thing, and one thing that we're really trying to address with Heartful is the lack of information, lack of detailed information, and that talks to the planning issue as well. So making sure that there is a really detailed information about each property that we list on the site that will be useful in a practical sense for people who are booking accommodation.

And yeah, I could go on and on. There are so many more.

Larissa: I love how broadly you talk about accessibility, not just for people with physical disabilities, but for people who might have sensory sensitivities or sensitivity to smell. I've definitely had those experiences myself using other booking platforms. I want to know how does Heartful define accessible accommodation and what are some of the things that hosts put in place to make their accommodation more accessible?

Jen: Yeah. So that's a really good point. And I should mention too, so I'm Autistic ADHD. My son, who's seven, is Autistic ADHD, and my partner is Autistic. So we are a completely neurodivergent family, so we have a very fun household, as you can imagine. But look, I think, yeah, in terms of some of the initiatives of hosts, so we're encouraging our hosts to look at that much broader spectrum of access needs. So to look at disability and chronic illnesses being very nuanced and individual. So describing things about sensory related aspects of a particular stay. So it might be that a stay has no artificial sense or that it has noise dampening measures, or that it has plenty of quiet spaces to retreat to those sorts of things, as well as things like ramps and wide enough doorways and walk-in showers and all of those sorts of things.

So we're really broadening the spectrum of things that we're focusing on as an accommodation site and making sure that people go away or once they book something that they go away feeling like, "Yep, this place is actually going to meet my needs. I'm going to be comfortable there. I'm not going to have to worry about asking for X, Y, and Z." Those sorts of things. So it's really about educating our hosting community about how to do that and that it doesn't need to be expensive or exhaustive. It can often be quite simple to do once you know what you're doing. So that's something that our hosting community is very committed to.

Larissa: Yeah, I love that. I definitely need to book a Heartful stay for my next stay because that just sounds right up my alley. Do you have any memorable experiences where Heartful has made a significant impact on a traveler's journey?

Jen: Yeah, so I mean, we only launched our platform in October last year, and we're recording this in early February, so we are still very early in our journey. At the moment, or since we launched. We've been focused on onboarding hosts. So we're sort of building our supply, if you like at the moment, rather than necessarily appealing to guests just yet. But look, having said that, we still have had some bookings via the platform since launch.

And I think one of the most memorable sort of experiences that a guest had that they told me about was that they had the opportunity to find out about a particular property before they got there. So this particular guest did have some sensory issues and she said oh, it was great being able to book somewhere that she knew was going to not have any of those artificial scents. So candles or diffusers or sprays or any of those sorts of things. And that she also did mention that there were ample quiet spaces to retreat to, which, particularly for larger properties that might be suitable for a group, or the like, having those places where you can just go and have some quiet time and that people can sort of separate, you don't have to be in each other's faces all the time, I think is really important.

Larissa: Absolutely.

Jen: But she said that made all the difference, so that was a pretty good bit of feedback to get.

Larissa: That's awesome. And I'm sure you'll continue to get so much positive feedback as people use the platform more and book some more stays.

Jen: Yeah, absolutely. No, totally.

Maddy: So Jen, how do you see the future of accessible travel evolving, and what role do you envision Heartful playing in that landscape?

Jen: Yeah, so I guess the fundamental response to that question is that accessible travel has got a lot of evolving to do. At the moment, about 25% of trips that are taken within Australia are taken by someone with a disability or a chronic and or a chronic condition or chronic health condition. So that's a sizeable portion of the market. And I know in 2023, Tourism Australia actually estimated the value of the accessible travel market at something like $6.8 billion annually. So it's enormous.

I see us as playing a really key role in pioneering how best practise, I guess, in terms of accessible accommodation and how to really create a genuinely accessible environment in terms of a short-term stay. So yeah, I think one of the things that we really want to do at Heartful is to take on an educative role. So to actually teach both hosts and guests what the fundamentals are, I suppose, of travelling in an accessible way, and that it is very nuanced and that it is very individual and that we need to consider things that we may not have considered in the past about disability and chronic illness.

So yeah, I see us as pioneering that in a way, and I really want us to, I guess, emerge as the platform of choice for people who do have an environmental or a social conscience who want to book somewhere that aligns with their values. At the moment, some of the feedback that I've been getting about the existing range of options is not fantastic. I think people feel in Australia feel quite disconnected from the offerings in the accommodation sector. So I see us as filling that gap, but also really spearheading a complete change in ethos about the way that people travel and what they value when they travel.

Larissa: I love that. I think what you're doing with Heartful is just so amazing. Where can people go to find out more about Heartful?

Jen: So obviously you can go to our website, the URL is just https and then the colon double slash heartful.travel. So there's no www, it's just heartful.travel. So you can go to our website and see the range of accommodation we've got available at the moment. We're still growing, so we are still working on building our supply at the moment, but we've got over 120 properties listed on the site already. So we're building that as we move forward. We're aiming to try and get to between three and 500 properties by the end of our first year of operation, which will be in October this year. And you can also follow us on socials obviously. So we're just at Heartful.travel on Instagram, and I think our handle's exactly the same on TikTok. We're also on Facebook and LinkedIn, but we're most active on Instagram and TikTok.

Larissa: Awesome. Yeah, we can link that in the show notes for anyone who wants to follow along or book a Heartful stay. I love a weekend trip away, so I'll definitely be booking a few trips throughout the year.

That's a great spot to wrap up on, Jen. We really appreciate you chatting with us today. And yeah, it's been great to get to know you and your journey with Heartful, so thank you so much.

Jen: No, thank you. And look, I'd be remiss to say too, one other really great benefit of the Heartful platform is that we only take 7% commission. So as well as being the most accessible and inclusive and environmentally responsible, we're also kind of the cheapest. So hopefully people will keep that in mind and support us in our first year. Yeah, thank you so much.

Larissa: Absolutely. Thank you.

Maddy: Yeah. I think I'm going to have to book a Heartful trip soon.

Jen: Fantastic. And yeah, look, if you can't, I mean, the other thing is too, if people go to the platform and they can't find what they're looking for immediately, please reach out and let us know where you'd like us to try and get more stays in particular locations. We're always inviting hosts to come and join the platform from right across Australia, so let us know if something's missing on the site, and we'll do our very best to fill those gaps.

Larissa: That's such a great idea.

Maddy: Yeah, I love that ethos. That is fantastic. Working with the community to provide something that's so needed. Thank you so much, Jen.

Jen: Absolutely. Thank you. Thank you so much for having me.

Maddy: This podcast is brought to you by Spoony, a safe space for neurodivergent, chronically ill, and disabled people to make friends and find support. Spoony is the world's very first social app designed with accessibility at its core. If you like this episode, it would mean the absolute world to us if you could hit subscribe or share it with a friend. If you'd like to join our Spoony community, you can download the app on the app store or via Google Play. And if you'd like to keep up to date with us on social media, you can follow us via the links in the show notes.