TravelAbility Insider

The Intersection of Travel and Disability

ADA

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.

Dig This: Ancient Greek Temples May Have Had Disability Ramps

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rendering of ancient pyramid buildings
image courtesy of Livescience.com

The most reasonable explanation for ramps is that they were intended to help mobility-impaired visitors access the spaces that they needed to experience religious healing. The Greeks built these spaces for disabled people so that their target visitors could access them.  Read more, here.

30 Accessible Tips to Celebrate the 30th Anniversary of the ADA

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three people having drinks at the bar of a hotel. one has a prosthetic leg all are wearing casual sportswear

Seyfarth, a prominent Washington firm, has a series of three videos, each only a few minutes in length, that illustrate 30 tips to help improve accessibility. Find them, here.

Accessible Hotel Design Doesn’t Have to Be Boring and Unsexy

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A peek at the future of accessible hotel design. courtesy: Hotel Brooklyn

Hotels are challenging pre-existing attitudes towards accessibility in design in 2020 and will focus more on meaningful spaces for modern travelers, according to HotelDesign.net. An exclusive panel discussion at their upcoming U.K. Summit will give delegates an unprecedented insight into the design decisions involved in the creation of a 189-key standard-bearer, Hotel Brooklyn. READ MORE.

Our take: The Hotel Summit’s decision to lead with accessibility at their 2020 conference is spot on. Operational standards will always be the rules to play by, but the industry trend is toward more design and aesthetic freedom than ever before. We are watching the evolution of accessibility, which will become a significant chunk of the market in which 1 billion people are aging into the next stage of life—with the money and interest in traveling. 

Hotel Designs to put ‘accessibility’ under the spotlight at Hotel Summit 2020

The Baby Steps Plan to Accessibility

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Think small. Aim high.

In order to achieve your goal of getting beyond compliance to creating a more accessible and disability-friendly destination, we’ve outlined the baby steps you and your colleagues can take to get started. And surprise! Many are free or will have a minimal impact on your budget.

Step 1: Convince the Unconvinced: How to Make The Case for Accessibility

  1. Join the mainstream. Making the world accessible for people with disabilities is gradually becoming a mainstream trend.  To bolster this argument consider forwarding “10 Signs Accessibility Is Going Mainstream” and “20 Accessibility Travel Predictions for 2020” to your management, board members and your industry.
  2. Look to Baby Boomers who have 70% of the disposable income in the U.S.  (Average household net worth: $1.2 million) and will inherit $14 trillion globally in the years ahead that can be used for travel.
  3. Learn from your peers. Share presentations from TravelAbility Summit 2019. Each issue of the Insider newsletter offers a link to a different presentation from the 2019 event, which can be used to help educate your industry. See Baby Boomer Travel research from AARP  here. 
  4. Roll a mile in my chair. Watch this superb video and distribute it to hotel GM’s. It’s called the “Hotel Manager in Wheelchair” video and was created by Sylvia Longmire. 

Step 2: Research & Development

  1. Research accessibility assets beginning with museums and attractions. Work with the ADA coordinator in the City Manager’s office to find the latest accessibility information about beaches, parks and outdoor hiking trails. Example: Here’s NYC & Co’s Accessibility page.
  2. Research hotels that will be undergoing a renovation in the next three years. Make a list of local experts and disability organizations who might attend a meeting and share knowledge with hotels while they’re in the renovation planning stage.
  3. Convene a meeting comprised of local people who can speak to travel issues around autism, mobility, and vision at your destination. Research shows these are top concerns for Americans

Step 3: Take Action

  1. Check if your website is accessible. Enter your website’s URL into www.wave.com to assess its accessibility. If it’s not, check out www.accessibe.com, which uses AI to convert websites to compliance standards for as little as $495/year.
  2. Introduce an accessibility/inclusion “Pledge” (TAS can provide you with one) that can be signed by industry partners, presented to local elected officials and shared with your community to underline your commitment to making your destination accessible.
  3. Include a panel about accessibility and travel at your next industry event
  4. Meet with your City Manager’s ADA Coordinator to learn about outdoor and nature accessible assets for future possible collaboration.  
  5. Use the Fabulous 50 list on the TAS website to Introduce your industry partners to apps and products, everything from BeMyEyes to portable ramps, that ease the transition to greater accessibility.
  6.  Keep asking—and answering questions. Work with forward-thinking hoteliers to develop an Accessibility FAQ page with images of the bathroom, entryway, and sleeping rooms. 
  7. Offer awareness training: Create a “Welcome to Accessibility 101” Seminar for your local industry partners.
  8. Add your Accessibility page to your website. Organize the research into an easily updatable product page similar to what Valley Forge did after TravelAbility Summit.

Final Note: To find trustworthy resources. Browse by topic on the TravelAbilityInsider.com website. (Topics include Autism, Hotels, Expert Opinions and more.) Sign up for our newsletter here to keep up to date with resources, new ideas and find personal stories

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