TravelAbility Insider

The Intersection of Travel and Disability

Hotels

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.

Free and Easy: The DIY Hotel Accessible Landing Page of the Future

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A screenshot of a hotel website with the words 'hotel accessibility. The photo shows a lobby with large chairs and lots of space and windows.

TravelAbility Insider caught up Pam Wright, COO of Point Hospitality which manages six hotels in California, Arizona, and Utah, including the Holiday Inn Santa Maria, who generously agreed to collaborate with TravelAbility to create a model accessibility landing page. The goal of the page is to help prospective guests with a disability to determine if the hotel meets their specific needs, while also dramatically reducing the likelihood of ADA litigation.  The concept was an Accessibility FAQ page focusing on the hotel entrance, bathroom, and sleeping rooms.  You can see it here.

Q: Tell us a little about your hotel? (number of rooms, target market audience) 
A: We are a 207-room hotel on the Central Coast of California with an outdoor pool, hot tub, fully equipped fitness room, full-service restaurant, and meeting space. Our typical guests range from leisure travelers, wholesale groups, corporate individuals, and group and government (due to our proximity to Vandenberg Air Force Base.)

pam wright, long grey hair glasses and smiling in headshot

“It was very easy to add this section to our accessible page and we feel really good about providing such detailed information so potential guests can be sure our facilities will meet their needs.”

Pam Wright, COO of Point Hospitality

Q: Does the brand’s corporate parent, IHG, have contractual restrictions about individual properties adding accessible room images or content to their website?
 A: We don’t control the Holiday Inn corporate site where we are displayed, but like almost all hotels I know, we have a mirrored “vanity” site to which we refer all direct bookings from our own marketing where we can include more robust information and, since we are generating the booking through our marketing efforts, we are not required to pay a commission.

Q. Would it be helpful for your local DMO to promote your accessible page on their accessible page? 
A: Yes. We would love the direct booking referrals coming to our own website.

Q: What staff member was used to complete the FAQ? 
A: Sales, Engineering, and GM, many of the FAQ’s were easy to answer.

Q. How much time was required? 
A: The FAQ Section took about 2 hours to gather all of the information

Q. What camera was used for photography?
A: An iPhone camera…and I think you’ll agree that photos are quite clear. We wanted to understand the effort, cost, and manpower needed so any hotel can replicate this using any smartphone camera, minimal staff time, and prepare themselves for the 75 million baby boomers who will be aging into disability in the near future.

Again, here’s the landing page. 

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

Have You Signed & Shared? 50K Say We Must Standardize Hotel Bed Heights

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Why can’t all hotel bed heights be the same? [photo of bed with pillows including an emoticon poop pillow]

The most frequent question about hotel room accessibility asked by blog readers concerns bed height — why are hotel beds so tall? Tall beds may be ‘in’ right now, but they are a major accessibility barrier to wheelchair users, who face difficulty in transferring between uneven surfaces, explains blogger and Advisory Board Member John Morris. 

 Our take: First, the reason why beds are not a uniform height: the ADA does not set a maximum bed height requirement as well as the fact that a large number of semi-ambulatory disabled people need a taller bed. Turn concern into action by signing the Change.org petition Morris found after doing some digging and join 50K other folks who have done the same. To sign the petition on Change.org, click here. 

Virgin Hotel in Chicago First U.S. Hotel to Use New Accessibility Rating System

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Ad for a virgin hotel in Chicago that says step in! Outdoor shot of people entering hotel with souvenirsOne of his biggest challenges faced by anyone with accessibility needs is finding information on the accessibility of hotels that they can truly trust, writes Richard Branson, founder, and CEO of Virgin Hotels. Branson, almost always ahead of the curve, found the solution in Mobility Mojo, which specializes in detailed hotel accessibility assessments. According to the story, there are more than a billion people globally with a disability—and more than 50% of these people choose not to travel because of a lack of information on accessibility.  By using the website tool on Virgin Hotel sites, travelers can easily see the available accessibility features upfront. See an example of the travel service rating of a Chicago Virgin Hotel, here.  

Our take: Digital solutions such as Mobility Mojo are on the rise, as are people with disabilities looking for answers. This particular solution is clear and easy to understand and offers and an overall rating for people who don’t need to know every detail. Congrats to Virgin Hotels for being a trailblazer!