Disabled travel: finding accessible places to stay is the main problem

Perhaps it’s a holiday in the sun or a weekend in the city to catch up on a show or similar event. Maybe it’s just to hook up with family and friends to re-engage. Whatever the reason, short or long breaks normally afford an opportunity to rest, recharge, let off some endorphins and improve your wellbeing.

Me and my partner of 20 years, Julie, who is now my full-time carer, have had some fantastic trips home and away over the years. However, we can’t just throw a load of clothes into a suitcase and head off into the sunset any more.

In 1997 I was diagnosed with primary progressive multiple sclerosis. Since then, I’ve have had to adapt from walking with a limp, to a walking stick, crutches, manual wheelchairs, handcycles, to now flying around in an electric power chair. I haven’t got much core strength left, so require a hoist and sling to get me into bed or on to the toilet.

We live in a beautiful spot in Devon – which is a holiday in itself – and have adapted to the trials and tribulations of living with my progressive disability.

We don’t travel abroad much now. Although I’ve avoided being left on a plane for too long, I have had to endure the indignity of being physically carried up and down airstairs and dragged through aeroplanes strapped to an aisle chair while fellow passengers stare on incredulously. It makes you feel like a circus exhibit or Hannibal Lecter, and I just got irked at having to put up with it.

Nonetheless, we still like a change of scenery, and the UK has some beautiful spots to visit, many of which are on our to-do list. Driving across the UK can take as long as a long-haul flight (it took us 11 hours to get to Northumberland once) and getting the train requires logistical planning to ensure an attendant is there to get you on and off. But these barriers can seem like small potatoes compared with finding appropriate accommodation.

Despite the Equality Act 2010 providing better facilities of transport and access to public buildings, it appears to fall short when ensuring better services and availability for disabled customers staying in one of the UK’s 39,000 hotels.

Five per cent of Travelodge’s 43,000 rooms are wheelchair friendly or adapted in some way – which normally involves grab bars around the bathroom, widened doorways and step-free access – and they cost the same as other rooms (£64 on average). That percentage is in line with building regulations for new hotels but when reflected on a national scale, it is questionable whether it is high enough considering people with disabilities make up a fifth of the population.

Of course, “disability” encompasses people with a broad range of conditions and needs, and for many, a couple of nights away in a hotel creates few problems. However, for the UK’s 1.2m wheelchair users, especially those like myself, where a hoist is an essential piece of equipment, there are still serious gaps in the services provided.

According to the Ceiling Hoist users Community, out of 1.4m hotel rooms in the UK, fewer than 20 have full disabled access, including a ceiling hoist, and six of these are in London. No doubt some hotels would allow you to hire a manual hoist but in general these are not available for short-term periods and would double the cost of any stay, further adding to the disability price tag.

Things don’t get much better when you search Airbnb. After ticking all the accessibility features on its website, including a hoist, I found a single log cabin – in Devon. It looked really nice but was less than an hour from home and prices were just shy of £200 a night. Availability in the summer months was already very limited, highlighting the demand for such accommodation.

Things are better if you search online for fully accessible holidays. There you can find more availability as owners have cottoned on to the potential marketplace and have gone that extra mile to ensure peace of mind for their visitors. Most properties clearly list and detail their services, so there are no hidden surprises, and the owners seem to get what it’s all about and are subsequently rewarded with repeat bookings. On social media, private groups of people, many with first-hand experience of disability and finding suitable places to stay, have come together to source and recommend accessible properties for those seeking them. It builds a community of like-minded folk helping each other out and sharing their knowledge and endorsements.

Nothing comes cheap in this day and age, and a four-day off-season break could set you back more than £600. That’s great if you can afford it. But most of the properties are set in rural locations, which means city breaks are all but ruled out.

The hotel industry could learn much from the fully accessible holiday sector and even benefit from it. The “purple pound” is worth £16bn a year to the domestic tourism market – a fifth of which goes on overnight stays. In the grand scheme of things, a ceiling hoist would be a small investment (£4k or £5k) for most hotels, wouldn’t need to spoil the aesthetics of a room and would probably increase financial returns.