Hello fellow travelers.  When last we met we talked about airport shuttles.  Now I’d like to talk to you about the Americans with Disabilities (ADA) provisions that shape accessibility in the hotels themselves, and how various agencies and hotels are rising to the challenge.

In the USA, according to ADA, hotels, motels and inns are supposed to provide reasonable accommodation for a wide range of disabilities. Title III of the law, which defines hotels and motels as public accommodations, generally ‘forbids discrimination on the basis of disability in the full and equal enjoyment of goods, services, facilities, privileges, advantages, and accommodations of any place of public accommodation by any person who owns, leases or operates a place of public accommodation.’  But, because the law does not specify accessibility guidelines (i.e., building regulations, equipment, appropriate communication devices, hiring procedures, and service delivery recommendation), hotel owners or operators had to rely on other sources in complying with ADA.  That changed in 1991 when the U.S. Architectural & Transportation Barriers Compliance Board published ADA Accessibility Guidelines (ADAAG) for Buildings and Facilities.

Section 4 of the ADAAG guidelines deals in general terms with the space requirements in all places of public accommodation, and address all the things you might expect; the height and width of hallways and doorways (80 inches in height and 36 inches in width), and the dimensions of bathroom stalls (a minimum width of 60" and a length that allows using a wheelchair to approach the toilet either from the front or side).

Section 9, on the other hand, specifically addresses accessible transient lodging and outlines the requirements for things like the ratio of accessible to non-accessible rooms a hotel must provide and the size of the maneuvering space around the bed (36 inches). This section also outlines the required usage of adaptive technology devices that make hotel stays easier for people with a wide range of disabilities.  Examples of the types of technology the ADAAG recommends are: visual alarm clocks and smoke alarms, telephone signalers, closed-caption decoders, and doorbell notifiers.

That’s it for now. If you have any questions or comments please feel free to share them.  I’m always open to chatting with my readers.  In my next entry I will discuss lodging alternatives, specifically accessible home exchanges.  I hope you will join me. 

Until then, happy traveling.