Hotels.com is being sued by two Californian women because they could not ensure rooms booked via the website were wheelchair-accessible. The lawsuit claims that Hotels.com breaks the state’s civil rights laws, its Disabled Persons Act and its Unfair Competition Law.
The problem stems from site visitors offered disabled-access rooms as an option that it cannot guarantee ahead of the person’s arrival at the hotel. As e-consultancy points out, the US’s equivalent of the UK’s Disability Discrimination Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act does not class websites as public accommodations, which are required to be accessible to disabled users.
On a related note, for anyone interested in reading material on accessibilty I can recommend the book ‘Constructing Accessible Web Sites‘ - it’s a few years old now but a good reference and introduction to the legal, business, ethical and technical aspects of accessible design.
It looks to have been significantly revised in 2006 and renamed ‘Web Accessibility: Web Standards and Regulatory Compliance‘.
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May 24th, 2007 at 1:40 am
I’ve had the same problem with another online company when booking a hotel. We were told we had an accessible room, only to find out that it wasn’t availible when we got to the hotel! We had a huge fuss trying to get our money back when we tried because we had to try another two hotels before finding one with an accessible room.
May 30th, 2007 at 2:13 pm
Thanks Kim & Sophie for your message. Hopefully this will help set a precedent on how accommodation providers have to ensure accessible rooms during the booking process.
Cheers,
Dominic
June 10th, 2007 at 10:01 am
This is a real and long-standing problem for many customers who need reliable accessibility information BEFORE THEY TRAVEL! In Europe there have been several efforts to improve the quality of on-line information to travellers, so they can know what levels of accessibility to expect at hotels and tourist attractions. Cities, regions and national tourist boards have been working on these issues, but noticeably few hotel chains publish this kind of information. One of the problems for the customer is that one definition of what is “accessible” does not match another - in most cases. In fact many hotel chains want to improve their information and services but they don’t have the resources or know-how to do it.
Addressing this issue, we created the “OSSATE” concept: a “One-Stop-Shop for Accessible Tourism in Europe”. Have a look at our site: http://www.ossate.org
This initiative is setting up an e-Service for accessibility information, based on standardised OBJECTIVE statements, simple measurements (like the free-passage width of door-openings) and some helpful photos of crucial places, like bathrooms. Information covers a wide range of disabilities, allergies, availability of special diets, policies on service animals, etc. Hoteliers can submit this information themselves via an on-line tool, or request an expert auditor to check their premises.
The new service is now beng piloted at http://www.europeforall.com
- The Destination Search tool on the site currently covers accommodations in Greece, Belgium, Austria, parts of the UK…. other countries coming soon.
(IVOR AMBROSE, OSSATE CO-ORDINATOR)