What Do Autistic Independent Travellers Actually Need?
After understanding what airports currently provide, the second thread asks a more important question: What do autistic adults actually need in order to travel independently?
This distinction matters because tourism research has historically given limited attention to neurodivergence, while much autism-and-tourism research has concentrated on children travelling with parents or caregivers. Jepson, Stadler and Garrod argue for tourism research to move toward a social-model approach in which the industry considers the barriers it creates for neurodivergent travellers.
More recent autistic-led airport research and research specifically involving autistic adults begins to give a clearer picture.
One of the strongest themes is not simply anxiety, but uncertainty.
Research into autistic adults' experiences of public places found that unfamiliarity, inconsistency and lack of information could increase the impact of difficult sensory environments. Providing information beforehand increased predictability.
For air travel, uncertainty exists everywhere:
How busy will security be? What will they ask me to do? Where exactly do I go next? When will my gate appear? What happens if it changes? What will boarding look like?
The right information at the right moment.
Airports combine multiple potential sensory pressures: