Atlantis Holiday Apartments in Torquay, regular advertisers on the Good Access Guide have been awarded the Southwest Tourism Excellence Award in the Access for All category.
Well done and congratulations to Pauline and John Roberts on this tremendous achievement.
A major shift has happened in how disabled travellers will be able to book hotel rooms in the future.
If you’ve ever tried booking an adapted room online you’ll know that it’s nigh on impossible.
You know that these big hotels must have the adapted rooms but they don’t mention them on their websites or, if they do, it just says something like “wheelchair friendly” or “disabled access”. Not much use when you want to know if there’s a level access shower and whether the door to the bathroom is wide enough to get your wheelchair through!
Two American ladies, both of whom are wheelchair users, felt that enough was enough. They filed lawsuits against Hotels.com and Expedia – and won.
Now these two giants are due to make adapted rooms available online and to give much more information about accessible facilities than ever before.
This is a huge step forward over what is the norm now – you can request an adapted room but the hotels won’t guarantee it. Not much use when you’ve travelled half way round the world (or even just a few miles) and find, on arrival, that your adapted room isn’t available or that it just isn’t suited to your particular requirements.