TravelAbility Insider

The Intersection of Travel and Disability

ADA//Law

Visit Florida partners with UK Travel Industry Mag to Offer Online Accessibility Training Seminar for Agents

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Information about the webinar on accessible travel, which includes a reference to a free on-demand viewing option

London-based TTG hosted its first webinar on accessible travel last month in association with Visit Florida. An on-demand recording of the webinar is available for free download. Speakers included:

  • Lynne Kirby, managing director, Enable Holidays
  • Monique Jarrett, model, influencer and diversity advocate
  • Richard Thompson, co-founder, Inclu Travel
  • Narelle McDougall, general manager, Amilla Maldives

The opening session featured a presentation by Visit Florida detailing what the Sunshine State is doing to make its tourism industry more accessible and inclusive. Read more.

Our TakeAway: Smart idea for Visit Florida to tap into the reach of TTG to share their insights and experience on the journey toward more inclusive travel. 

Digital Accessibility Lawsuits on the Rise but Travel and Hospitality Are Rarely the Target

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Chart shows percentages of ADA lawsuits that have targeted various industries. eCommerce is at the top of the list with 84 percent followed by food service with 7 percent and education with 1 percent. Travel and hospitality are also at 1 percent.

Most digital accessibility lawsuits are aimed at eCommerce websites and widgets according to the midyear report from Usablenet.com. Only 44 out of 4500 that are projected to be filed by the end of 2023, were directed at hotels and none at destination sites. Read more.

As we reported in last month’s Insider, however, one case targeting the lack of accessible content on a hotel website has reached the Supreme Court. 

Our TakeAway: As we raise the bar on accessibility in our facilities and services, we can’t neglect our websites and online communications. Usable.net provides a range of tools to help meet the standards of the ADA, including a free website audit. However,  the case before SCOTUS revolves around the fact that the lack of accessibility information on the hotel’s website rendered the experience for disabled visitors to be discriminatory.

DMO DIY Dept: Travel Oregon Shows How You Can Create Your Own TravelAbility Summit

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A group of 30+ Oregon DMO employees wearing their summit badges beneath a "Welcome to Oregon" headline set against an image of an evergreen tree on a hilltop

If you attended the TravelAbility Summit in Savannah in August, you were probably just as likely to meet someone from the Northwest as the Deep South. Oregonians seemed to be everywhere. And they were. Travel Oregon brought a posse of 34 people to Georgia, seizing the opportunity to create a kind of Summit-within-the-Summit.

“It worked out well for the state,” said Kevin Wright, VP of Marketing for Travel Oregon. “We brought the attendees, and they did the work and now we’ll be one of the most accessible states in the country.” Read more.

Our TakeAway: It sounds like Oregon is laying down a challenge. Next year’s summit in San Francisco provides a great opportunity for other states to follow Oregon’s lead and bring an even larger delegation. Competition aside, it’s a smart idea to leverage the national event to foster state-level collaboration.

TravelAbility to Host Emerging Markets Summit 2024 on Inclusive Travel in San Francisco

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A moderator who uses a wheelchair hosts a panel discussion at the 2023 EMS Summit; image includes the logo for Travelability: The Intersection of Travel and Accessibility.

We’re thrilled to announce that the next Emerging Markets Summit will take place on October 28-30, 2024 at the Argonaut Hotel in San Francisco. The summit will bring together travel industry professionals, disability advocates, and travelers with diverse needs to explore the latest trends and best practices in inclusive travel.

The Argonaut Hotel, located in the historic Fisherman’s Wharf, is one of the most accessible hotels in San Francisco, according to several travelers with disabilities who praise its facilities and its services. The hotel offers spacious rooms, roll-in showers, grab bars, lowered counters, and other amenities that cater to the needs of travelers with a range of abilities.

The summit will provide travel industry professionals with a big-picture view and concrete strategies for tapping the growing market of accessible travel.

“We are excited to host this summit and share our vision of making travel accessible and inclusive for everyone,” said Jake Steinman, the founder and CEO of TravelAbility. “We invite all travel industry professionals to join us and learn from each other.”

This year the Summit sold out for. If you’d like to reserve your spot for 2024 or learn more about TravelAbility, visit [www.travelability.net] or follow TravelAbility on [Facebook] and [LinkedIn].

Read more: EMS2024 Announcement

Hotel Accessibility Reaches the Supreme Court

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A young white woman sitting in a chair in a hotel with a service dog at her feet. (Photo credit: Disability:IN.)

The Supreme Court is preparing to weigh in on two critical issues in the case of Acheson Hotels v. Laufer. The central issue is to what extent disabled travelers can hold hotels and other public accommodations accountable for failing to meet the standards of the ADA, including failure to describe their accessibility features accurately on their website. The second issue is whether a “tester” who has never stayed at the hotel has standing to bring a suit. “Being a tester in civil rights cases is an honored and necessary role,” writes Lucy Trieshmann of the ACLU. “It has evolved over the years, from Black patrons trying to enter a ‘whites only’ waiting room, to women applying for typically male jobs, to families applying to ‘singles only’ housing. In each case, the tester has no intention of taking the job or renting the housing — but, as a member of the class of people facing discrimination, can go to court to enforce civil rights laws.”

Trieshmann of the ACLU, who describes herself as a wheelchair user with multiple disabilities, a number of examples from her own experience of how hotels fail disabled travelers: “Hotels often take a kitchen sink approach to accessibility, throwing in a visual accommodation here and a mobility accommodation there, but failing to provide full accessibility to either group. This overlooks the point of accessibility, effectively making the room useless to many disabled travelers.” Read more.

Our takeaway. The ADA is clear on the responsibility of hotels and other public accommodations to make their facilities accessible for disabled travelers AND to let visitors to their websites know that their venue is accessible. Travelers with disabilities need easy access to specific information about the hotel’s accessibility features in order to determine whether they will be able to get to and use the room.