YUFENG YANG
Nick Perozzo
Braydon Allen
Raimot Adewunmi
Karam El-Chafehi
University of Guelph
Ruben Burga
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The Grotto has continued being an innovator for the local community and the climbing community as a whole. One main focus on the innovation is the inclusion of all, regardless of gender, race, sexuality, and most recently, disability. As a rock climbing gym, it can sometimes be hard to be inclusive of all community members due to the natural state of climbing gyms. The natural state of climbing gyms is due to the uniqueness rock climbing, as these gyms often have unleveled and padded floors, large staircases, as well as tight corners. Recently, the Grotto has been the innovators of the inclusion of members with disability in several steps!
The Grotto has always been striving towards creating a fully inclusive rock climbing environment. Through creating awareness of rock climbing through having nights dedicated to women, programs that help underprivileged families, and a fully inclusive climbing gym that includes specialized ramps and equipment for those that are disabled. The innovation came to fruition back when the gym first opened several years ago. Creating an environment where people could enjoy what at the time was a very niche sport was of the highest priority for The Grotto. “We want to create an environment where everyone can enjoy rock climbing regardless of race, gender, financial position, or disability”.
The Grotto has always been innovative in several ways, sustainability or not. As a large facility opening in the early-days of a sport, located in a small town, the Grotto had virtually no chance of surviving. It started its path of innovation right away as it was one of the first rock climbing gyms in the area.
Like every business, the innovation started at the first glimpse of the company’s future. The Grotto has continuously innovated to allow for all members of the society to partake in the activities.
The long-term effects are evident the moment you walk into the gym. The largest long-term effect is the customer base. The Grotto has a large margin of customer return due to the values that the company holds. In one case, the summer camp program has ~75% return rate due to the inclusion of all genders, ages, and various disabilities in our programs. Short term-effects aren’t as evident. These effects consist of benefits and drawbacks that vary in time. When implementing the online waiver and test system, the short term effect was time consumption and some unimpressed customers. During the first few weeks, training new staff took time and money to use the new systems. Customers who don’t fit in the “older aged” demographic would be frustrated from the new system. Thankfully most customers agreed with the values behind the switch.
In the 23 years of business, the Grotto has experienced several repercussions from these innovations, both positive and negative. The Grotto has accomplished an increase in business (and locations) due to their innovation. The company has created a unique and isolated position in the market that allows for profit maximization, granting reinvestments. Due to the nature of the innovation, there is no impact on the environment for our narrowed topic (inclusion of all). In lieu of this, The Grotto has improved their systems to replace paper. Several years back, The Grotto was the first business to take a risky move and replace all paper-waivers and paper-tests with electronic forms. Since the implementation of this, The Grotto has effectively saved over 45,000 pieces of paper.
The Grotto’s innovation which provides increased accessibility is one that is unique – especially when keeping in mind the type of service that the Grotto offers. The Grotto is an industry leader in this sense. By unprecedented offering an opportunity to rock climb to those people with physical restrictions that otherwise wouldn’t be able to not only sets a standard in this kind of business, but it also paves the way for improvements in both business and social well-being. Firstly, allowing for a whole new targetable demographic brings a direct positive impact on the Grotto’s profits. Secondly, although it may not add much, but this innovation increases aggregate happiness in the regions in which the Grotto operates. As aforementioned, activities of this nature are seldom offered to those that are less physically capable due to handicap, thus providing an intangible and invaluable social benefit – happiness and increased communicative participation.
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David Perozzo, Business Owner
The Guelph Grotto (The Grotto, for short) is a Rock Climbing Gym in Guelph, Ontario, Canada. It encourages the engagement of the community in a healthy and fun form!