UK: Consumers’ Association finds a wide discrepancy of service levels
The Consumers’ Association has criticised the holiday industry for its treatment of disabled travellers and has highlighted a “wide discrepancy” of service given to those with and without disabilities.
According to a report in the Daily Telegraph, disabled inspectors from the consumer magazine Holiday Which? tried to book a range of trips to the Balearic Islands, and reported that information for disabled travellers was “hit and miss”. Furthermore, nearly a third of agents surveyed had premises that were either inaccessible or awkward for wheelchair-bound passengers.
An expert inspector then flew to Majorca to check out the accommodation that had been booked, and of seven hotels inspected, just two were suitable for people who use wheelchairs for most or all of the time. Ramps at one hotel were four times steeper than recommended in the UK.
The editor of Holiday Which?, Patricia Yates, told the Daily Telegraph: “Disabilities should not be a barrier to having a brilliant holiday. Service providers should have been making reasonable adjustments for disabled people for the best part of four years, but travel agents and tour operators seem to be lagging behind. It is clear from our research that significant improvements still need to be made to offer the same level of service to people with disabilities as to those without.”
