Carrie-Ann Lightley

she/her

Head of Marketing at AccessAble, Leading accessible travel writer and speaker

Carrie-Ann Lightley leads the marketing team at AccessAble, the UKâ€™s largest provider of access information, and is a leading accessible travel writer and speaker.

Through her blog www.CarrieAnnLightley.com she aims to encourage and inspire disabled people to travel, explore and discover new places. She started blogging in 2010 and has written accommodation reviews, city guides, collections of expert travel tips, and personal posts about her life and work.

Carrie-Ann has responsibility for the management and development of the AccessAble brand. This includes the creation of inspirational, SEO-relevant content and developing collaborative partnerships to increase the reach of the service. The impact and scale of this is clearly shown by looking at AccessAbleâ€™s user growth â€“ in 2018 they had 1.5 million users, and in 2023 over 6 million people used AccessAble.co.uk.

In addition, Carrie-Ann established the highly successful AccessAble Ambassadors network of freelance disabled content creators. Working with Ambassadors ensures that the lived experience of disability is authentically represented throughout AccessAbleâ€™s marketing and communications, something Carrie-Ann has always been passionate about.

Carrie-Ann leads AccessAble’s programme of industry-facing webinars, as webinar host. She also hosts the AccessAble podcast. Her passion and drive here is clearly seen through leading thought-provoking, insightful conversations that support organisations to learn from the unique perspectives of disabled individuals.

In 2023 Carrie-Ann became an Ambassador for UP The Adult Cerebral Palsy Movement. She shares the charity’s belief that Cerebral Palsy shouldn’t be a barrier to living a full and active life. She supports campaigns for better understanding, and dedicated medical provision so that adults with Cerebral Palsy can be better supported.

Carrie-Ann is a member of England’s Inclusive Tourism Action Group and Manchester Airport’s Accessibility Forum. She’s a judge for the Visit England’s Awards for Excellence and Visit Scotland’s Scottish Thistle Awards.

I’m thrilled, and so grateful, to have been included in the Disability Power 100 for five years. My disability means that I have a lot of past experience of facing challenges when travelling, inaccessible venues, and websites with really vague accessibility information. These are challenges that all disabled people face, but the benefit for me is to be able to use these difficult experiences to create positive change. My lived experience feeds into all of the work I do the ultimate goal being to help more disabled people access more of what life has to offer, through the power of information, collaboration, and community.

Q&A

Carrie-Ann Lightley

As a role model, what advice would you give a disabled person at the start of their career?

How has your work impacted the disabled community or raised awareness about disability issues?

What are your future goals or aspirations in your field or in disability advocacy?

What do you do to switch off and have fun?

What or who brings you joy?

Do you prefer dogs or cats?

What is the one thing you would change if you could?

What barriers do you think still need to be addressed to improve the lives of disabled people?

Useful links

Carrie-Ann Lightley

Areas of expertise

Accessibility, Business, Publishing, Social Media influencing, Television, radio, podcast, Transport, travel

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