Accessible Accommodation – What Does “Accessible” Actually Mean?
Before 2022, booking a hotel was easy. We found somewhere we wanted to go, looked for a hotel, checked the price and booked it. Now there are more things to consider. “Accessible” is something that sounds useful until there is a specific description. Experiences have taught me that the word can be very open. We’ve had holidays that, in terms of accessibility, range from good to requiring a lot more work. I decided to write this blog post to share my experiences in the UK, as well as discuss my ideas for potential new and improved national guidelines.
The Weaker Experiences
On one trip away, John was pretty sure he had booked an accessible room. It was a village pub with ground-floor rooms in the back courtyard. When I looked in the bathroom, the shower took up most of the room, and there were no grab rails. Later that evening, I went for a shower and ended up landing smack on my backside on the shower floor. The shower tray was like standing on an ice rink; I learned the hard way to pack non-slip swim shoes. A room might be on the ground floor with level access, but no accessible features in the room means it’s not actually accessible. Maybe we had been assigned the wrong room, but when access needs are noted on a reservation, it’s surely common sense to see what the guest might actually need.
We’ve had another experience, which is again about anticipating a guest’s requirements, but on the opposite end of the scale. On a weekend away, we had booked a small hotel on the side of a river. I booked via their website and selected a “riverside room” that had (according to their website) a wet room with a rainfall shower. When we arrived, the receptionist took us to our room, which was down an incredibly dingy corridor on the edge of the courtyard. I presume the river would be visible outside the window, even though there was an arrow pointing to the riverside rooms painted on the side of a wall. When we went into the room, it was very basic! The bed was low (which is usual for an accessible room). This was so low, though, that with balance problems, it was hard to stand up. The bathroom was a wet room with a couple of grab rails in the shower. The sink was at a normal height, and the mirror was attached to a chain hanging on the wall, which swung every time you put something on the tiny shelf attached to it. Due to the bare minimum of natural light in the room, it bore a striking similarity to Harry Potter’s cupboard.
I checked my booking confirmation and went to ask the receptionist why we were in a different room from the one I had booked. He apologised and said we had been moved because the booking note mentioned I had accessibility needs. I pointed out that I’d booked a room that was suitable for my requirements, and asked if he would make sure we were charged the correct rate for the room we were in. On checkout the next morning, he was hugely apologetic and said he would make sure the manager was aware. I sent an email to the manager when we got home, explaining the situation, and how it was disappointing that someone had made an assumption on my behalf that I required a different room from the one I had selected. His explanation was that a new receptionist was being thoughtful.
This is the same as my prior experience. Assumptions can be made; someone can think they are helping, and the wrong outcome happens, or nothing is done, and still the experience ends up going badly.
The Better Ones
That being said, I have had good experiences. We’ve stayed in a couple of good accessible rooms, especially when you consider the age of those particular buildings. Some hotels have staff who are more thoughtful. I don’t mean conversations prior to arrival. It’s kindness, the same as you’d expect for any guest, where you don’t feel awkward or singled out because of a disability. I believe that the age of a building does limit accessibility features to a certain extent, but every place can make some effort.
My two experiences with good accessible rooms have been in older buildings. One was a town hotel, and the other a country hotel. The property in town had a lift throughout the building. The bar was on the ground floor and the restaurant on the lower ground; we were told our room was on the top floor. Even with the lift, I wasn’t convinced this was going to work well. As it turned out, the room had some of the best accessible features I’ve had. The bathroom was a wet room; the shower area had multiple grab rails and a shower seat attached to the wall. The loo had grab rails around it and would have been easy to transfer to and from if I were in a chair, and the sink was at a lowered height.
In another country hotel, the building was roughly 15th century and still managed to provide a nice room with excellent accessible features. It was adjacent to the main building, with a couple of minutes’ walk between the two. The hotel had a lower-ground restaurant and bar, which were less accessible, but the lounge was nice; the main restaurant was accessible by a couple of steps, and there was a disabled loo in reception.
I have found my experiences with hotel staff to be mostly positive. On a recent weekend away, the hotel porters were very kind and any time they saw John and me walk in or out, all of them offered to help me use the two steps at the door. Shortly after I came home from rehab, John and I went away for a few days. I was still in a wheelchair at this point; we had a ground-floor room, which worked out well. The staff at the hotel were excellent. In areas of the hotel that had steps, such as the restaurant, they put a ramp out for John to push my chair up. To access the other restaurant on the hotel grounds, they kindly loaded my wheelchair in the boot of the hotel car to give us a lift down and back to the main hotel. This was all done without making me feel as if my disability was causing the staff any extra work. It shows that procedures can be put in place, equipment can be available, and staff training can include common sense and empathy.
Hotel Career
A large part of the reason I find all this so frustrating is that I spent the majority of my working life in hotels. I understand that things aren’t straightforward operationally. I also know that staff should be trained to treat every guest the same. I know that some hotels will only be able to provide a minimal amount of accessibility features, or even a fully accessible room, due to the style and age of the building. Though, where possible, a property can still use aids such as a portable ramp and have staff trained to assist with positioning it. All businesses, regardless of the age of the building or standard of the hotel, should have training programmes that give staff adequate knowledge of disability awareness.
There needs to be a consistent process for finding out what guests need, but there should not be a universal answer. Someone may need an accessible bathroom, or more room to move around a bed. For another guest, accessible parking or the number of steps may be of importance. It could be something else entirely. Each person is an individual and deserves to be treated as such. Disability should not change the level of customer service.
My Idea
I think there should be a staff training card that can be used as a prompt for talking to a guest and finding out what they actually need. It doesn’t need to be a complicated process. It could simply give reception staff some ideas about the questions they might ask when a room is booked. Having worked in hotels, I know there are ways of having that conversation without making it obvious that the call is about accessibility. It can just be part of finding out what will make the guest’s stay work for them.
The hotel website should make things just as straightforward. There should be an easy-to-find accessibility page explaining how many accessible rooms the hotel has and what features they have. If there are rooms that aren’t fully accessible but do have a walk-in shower with a small step, they can be included too, if the difference is made clear.
Finding that information shouldn’t feel like a treasure hunt. I’ve given up looking before, or found a couple of sentences hidden somewhere in the rooms section of a website, and still had no idea what I was booking. If a hotel explains its accessible features clearly, I can decide for myself whether it is going to work for John and me. That seems much easier than arriving and finding out afterwards.
Inevitably, as with any person, not every experience will go well. When it does happen, I think the hotel should take accountability and give an apology. After our experience when the room booking was changed on my behalf, the management offered me a two-course meal. Whilst this was generous, it wasn’t really feasible as we live two hours away. I explained how every guest was individual, and how they could implement a system similar to the one I mentioned. When things go wrong, it’s best if the hotel actually listens to the guest, and that way procedures can improve for future disabled guests.
Hotels are legally required to anticipate and deal with disability-related barriers through reasonable adjustments. For me, the problem isn’t that rules don’t exist, but that applying them in practice tends to differ greatly from one hotel to another.
What The Law Currently Says
I apologise for this section. I wanted to mention the current laws regarding equality, but I’ve never been very good at summarising, quoting or referencing source material. I was useless at the Harvard Referencing System when I was at university. I’ve posted links to the relevant legal guidance for hotels, bars and restaurants at the bottom of this blog for anyone who might be interested.
The Equality Act 2010 applies to services provided to the public. In 2026, the Equality and Human Rights Commission Code came into force on 5 August 2026. It specifically covers services such as hotels, restaurants and pubs. The Code provides guidance on the existing Equality Act duties; it does not create new law or new legal obligations. It explains that businesses have a duty to make reasonable adjustments in advance and proactively consider barriers a disabled person could face.
The 2026 Code says the reasonable adjustment duty a business has must be anticipatory. It includes “reasonable steps to avoid substantial disadvantage caused by a provision, criterion or practice; reasonable steps concerning physical features; and provision of auxiliary aids where required to avoid substantial disadvantage”.
This applies to disabled people generally. An individual request is not what triggers the duty. A business is not required to consider every need but is expected to think about what barriers may affect different kinds of disability. If a business becomes aware of a customer with specific needs, taking reasonable steps to accommodate them could be considered reasonable.
Of course, what is a reasonable adjustment depends on the circumstances. This includes the size and location of the business, the type of building the business is in, as well as the feasibility of any adjustments, i.e., the effect of a disability, practicality, cost and disruption. The Code also highlights good practices such as forward planning, access audits, liaising with disabled people for their views, maintaining aids, contingency plans, staff training, and keeping clear records of steps the business has taken.
What I’d Like To See
This is where my idea comes in. The law says nothing about a universal procedure describing how a hotel should contact disabled guests or provide every possible accessible feature. I would love to see some type of national “guidelines/framework”.
I’m fully aware that hotels will not have the same facilities, or be able to meet every possible requirement. I would like to see a consistent system that starts with a very easy question.
The key question should be: What does this guest actually need?
Processes can be standardised, but the solution should be individual.
REFERENCES
GOV.UK – Equality Act 2010: Code of Practice for services, public functions and associations, 2026. Published 21 May 2026; updated 5 August 2026; Code came into force 5 August 2026.
Equality and Human Rights Commission – Code of practice for services, public functions and associations, Chapter 7: Disabled people: reasonable adjustments. Published/updated 5 August 2026.
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