As you may see from my previous posts, I travel quite a bit for both work and leisure. One of the main sticking points when arranging my travel is the vast differences experienced with peoples' knowledge of access requirements. Most people readily understand that ramped access is a must but they do not look further than this. Reservation departments regularly say they have an accessible room but do not realise that wider doorways and handrails is not the be all and end all of access. On more than one occasion, I have had to explain the concept of a “roll-in” shower to then be met with a comment like “but we have handrails will they not do?” No they won’t do!
Added to the lack of access knowledge, there has also been the issue of finding hotels that are fully adapted for disabled travellers. Sourcing this information has always been encased in difficulties and many disabled people either choose not to travel or only use specific disability travel companies.
Bearing past issues, you can imagine my pleasure in learning that steps are being taken to improve things. In late January 2009, Expedia.com and Hotels.com announced a settlement in a case filed at the California Superior Court for Alameda County. As they are two of the world’s leading online travel companies, it is hoped that changes will be global and therefore benefit many here in the UK.
The settlement means that both companies will add features to their online travel reservation systems so that disabled travellers can use their online services to search for and reserve hotel rooms that have suitable accommodation.
“This settlement ushers in a new era in the online travel industry. A wheelchair user who reserves a hotel room online will no longer have to worry that she or he literally might not be able to enter the room after they arrive,” said Kevin Knestrick, an attorney with DRA, a non-profit law centre based in Berkeley, California that specializes in high-impact lawsuits on behalf of people with disabilities.
We can only hope that others operating within the Leisure and Tourism industry take note of this and imnplement the necessary action to improve their services in a likewise fashion.
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Hi Danny. I completely agree with your comments. The reservations teams in hotels should really understand what accessible rooms are. I recently phoned up some hotels looking for accessible rooms. One hotel told me that they had a room with an accessible bathroom. I then questioned this to ask if there was roll in shower. They advised no it's a bath. Not quite sure how a bath classes as an accessible bathroom!!
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