TravelAbility for Hospitality

The Future of Inclusive Travel

Accessible Rooms

13 Amenities for Under $1300 Total that can Make Any Sleeping Room or Bathroom Accessible

by Leave a Comment

picture of a hotel room with bed desk flat screen tv beige curtains and a red chair

Accessibility doesn’t always mean complicated, time consuming, or expensive. Hotel rooms can be made more comfortable for guests with disabilities using simple, off-the-shelf (meaning mostly Amazon) pieces of equipment. For a surprisingly small investment any hotel can make a huge difference in comfort and satisfaction for their guests. Here are 13 basic items that an accessible tour operator keeps in his trailer to make any hotel sleeping room or bathroom accessible for his clients.

Our Takeaway: Starting at under $50, the whole kit and caboodle can be purchased for less than $1300 on Amazon.

5 Deciding Factors When Booking an Accessible Hotel

by Leave a Comment

photo of blogger Emma Muldoon in a wheelchair wearing a pink shirt black jacket and blue jeans in front of a mural painted on a brick wall that makes her look like she has large green wings

The top disability lifestyle and travel blogger in the United Kingdom, Emma Muldoon, recently assembled a list of key factors to consider when booking an accessible hotel room as a wheelchair user. Recognizing that 1 in 5 people are disabled, and that disability will affect most people at some point in their lives, she highlights the opportunity for the travel industry, as “the collective spending power of disabled people is called The Purple Pound and is estimated at £274 billion a year.” In order to take advantage of that opportunity, hotels must ensure adequate wheelchair accessibility for disabled guests. 

Our Takeaway: Having someone with lived-experience demonstrate the features she doesn’t find often enough in hotel rooms creates awareness and, at the same time, empathy.

Read the full list here.

Movers and Shakers Turn out for the Grand Opening of the first 100% All Accessible Room Hotel in the World

by Leave a Comment

photo of Charles Hammerman at the opening of the Schoolhouse Hotel. He is wearing a brown grey polo shirt and holding a microphone

The Schoolhouse Hotel is revolutionary in the realm of accessible hotels. This vacation destination in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia, has become the world’s first fully beyond ADA-compliant hotel, ensuring comfortable stays for neurodivergent individuals as well as those with mobility issues, blindness, and deafness. The Schoolhouse Hotel is focused on accessibility for everyone from the moment a guest books a room through its website, all the way through check-out. Learn more about their model and why they’re being celebrated here.

Our Takeaway: The Schoolhouse Hotel serves as a veritable showroom of innovations, products, and technology that makes every room accessible for a wide range of disabilities. Hotel developers should be making pilgrimages to see what’s next.