By Denis Sheehan FIH
This month, an event unlike any other is being hosted at the Urban Farmer Project in the City of London, The aha Forum, in Partnership with Thomas Franks. This event brings together hospitality business leaders, people living with disability, and accessibility advocates, people collectively backing a more accessible and inclusive hospitality industry. Attendees will explore a powerful and necessary idea, accessibility is not a feature of hospitality, but its foundation.
The event, created and curated by Accessible Hospitality Alliance, is built around a clear purpose, to accelerate change in how the hospitality industry includes, represents, and serves people living with disabilities. Seen and unseen, physical and cognitive, temporary or permanent, all disabilities are part of the fabric of human diversity.
Attendees will step into a dynamic programme shaped by those with lived experience, industry insight, and operational expertise. From interviews and keynote sessions, individually crafted roundtables and panel discussion groups, the event is designed to both challenge and equip.
Challenge, yes, and also inspire connection and perspective. Some conversations will highlight the barriers, physical and attitudinal that persist. Others will surface the business case, how accessible hospitality isn’t just the right thing to do, but a commercial imperative in an industry built upon community and held together by authenticity.
Sessions will draw directly from the experience of people who live, work, and lead in hospitality while navigating disability, people who know both the opportunities and the obstacles first hand. Their experiences ground this event, and their insights light the path forward.
The event is structured with rhythm giving time for listening, for reflecting, and crucially, for sharing.
Throughout the day, attendees will be invited to contribute live feedback through short polls. These ‘Gather Feedback’ moments are designed not only to help the organisers evolve future events, but to allow attendees to shape an ongoing conversation. Every response matters. Each insight helps build a more responsive, inclusive framework for change.
Additionally, ‘Social Moments’ are woven into the agenda to encourage attendees to share their thoughts and feelings across LinkedIn, X, and other social media platforms. Why? Because inclusion doesn’t happen in silence. It happens when we amplify, when we challenge publicly, and when we celebrate progress loudly. By sharing a moment, a quote, or a personal reflection socially, attendees will help extend the reach of the event’s purpose carrying it far beyond the rooms where it transpires.
Attendees will leave with new connections, people who share their values and ambitions. Those connections could become partnerships. They might lead to new roles, new opportunities, or even new business models.
But perhaps most importantly, they’ll leave with a renewed sense of purpose and the tools to turn that purpose into policy, into action, and weave it into the culture of their business.
This event is designed as a catalyst. A spark. It’s a reminder that the hospitality industry doesn’t only serve, it leads. And leadership now means creating environments where everyone is authentically welcomed, supported, and celebrated.
The vision is simple: a hospitality world that welcomes everyone. But achieving it takes more than vision, it takes collective will.
As the afternoon unfolds, attendees will be challenged to think differently, to lead boldly, and to go back into their businesses with one goal in mind: making hospitality accessible.
In the evening attendees will enjoy a sumptuous range of food from the Thomas Franks chefs, accompanied by Taittinger champagne and Errazuriz fine wines provided by event drinks sponsor, Hatch Mansfield. Mocktails from drinks sponsor Alfresco will also be served.
During the evening attendees will also enjoy a live performance by Emmanuel Kelly who last year became the first physically differently-abled artist to perform to stadium crowds when he opened for Coldplay on their record-breaking “Music Of The Spheres” world tour.
Emmanuelle will be introduced by Joanne Reay, CEO, Øutlyer, an organisation they co-founded alongside third co-founder Coldplay’s frontman, Chris Martin. Øutlyer is a full-service entertainment production company, committed to featuring Øutlyers (people living with disability) in front of the camera, off-screen and on stage.
The event will bring together a diverse group of people with one thing in common, the shared purpose of seeing a more inclusive and accessible hospitality world.
For those not in the room, the invitation is open, please tune into our social media channels on the day to engage with our purpose. Because being accessible and inclusive is the responsibility of us all.
THE EVENT IS TOTALLY SOLD OUT
The next event will take place later this year, also in London, date and details to be announced soon. If you are interested in attending you can register your interest here.
