Skift Take
People who want to select a non-smoking room are shown options at most booking sites. The industry needs to be just as helpful for travelers with specific needs for mobility, hearing, or visual challenges. Thankfully several online booking sites are trying to help.
Two big challenges face travelers who have sight, hearing, or mobility issues — a sizeable group that covers about one in ten people in many countries.
Some struggle to use travel websites and airport kiosks that require a mouse to click around for researching and booking travel.
What's more, a majority — which includes seniors with age-related impairments — often feel frustrated at major travel sites for not providing ample and updated information about the rare hotels and private rentals that provide services for travelers with challenges.
As a workaround, many people looking for accessible travel book offline, turning to travel agents, like Accessible Poland Tours, that specialize in accessible tourism services for people with special needs.
In the past 18 months, many online booking sites and technologists have been aiming to make internet-based travel resources more accessible.
Major Players Make Moves
Alternative lodging, such as short-term apartment rentals or vacation homes, are often set up in properties that aren't required to comply with the same accessibility regulations that hotels must. That makes booking this lodging tricky for travelers, who are not sure what they might get.
Last November, alternative lodging giant Airbnb acquired Accomable, a two-year-old British startup that had been cataloging accessible lodging. The site has since gone offline as Airbnb has been integrating the company's know-how.
Last week, Expedia received final signoff that confirmed the accessibility of its website products from the National Federation of the Blind – the end of a process that started in 2015.
A bit earlier, in 2014, Expedia formally created a team of accessibility engineers who assess produc
