Easier to Book a Hotel for Dogs than Disabled People

Booking a pet-friendly family holiday is approximately 24 times easier than booking a European break with disability access.

Research collated by disability holiday specialists World Accessible Holidays shows there are far more readily available options for a family to go on holiday with their pet than with a wheelchair - leaving families with disability requirements with very limited options. 

Whilst approximately 37% of family rooms across ten European countries on booking.com ticked the ‘pet-friendly’ box, only 1.5% offer disability access.  

Across the 10 European countries studied, there were 41,576 pet-friendly hotels offering family rooms, with only 1,684 of these family rooms meeting accessibility requirements. It is substantially harder, and in some countries up to 60 times harder, to find a hotel that caters for disability access needs compared to one that allows families to travel with their pets. 

For example, only 0.55% of family hotels offer accessible rooms in Croatia, with only 36 hotels to choose from. However, if the holiday required a pet-friendly room, Croatia offered 2,304 hotels to choose on booking.com. 

“These statistics are disappointing but not surprising,” said Paula Hansen, founder of World Accessible Holidays.

“How can it be acceptable for hotels to provide information about accepting pets on a stay and the facilities they can provide for your pooch, yet when it comes to people with wheelchairs, there’s silence?

“I love my pet, but the fact I know I can take my dog Angus, but not my son who uses a wheelchair and has cerebral palsy, is frankly shocking.” 

The 10 European areas analysed included France; mainland Spain; Italy; Greece; The Antalya region in Turkey; Croatia; Portugal; Spain’s Canary Islands; Cyprus and Majorca. 

100% of the 10  areas researched generated more hotel options through Expedia.com and Booking.com when searching for a pet-friendly family room than one that has wheelchair access.

In addition, information presented by hotels often varied, causing disabled customers confusion about what facilities are available at hotels.Where hotels who welcome pets had clear wording and policies, there was little consistency in listings of hotels that claim to provide accessibility access, including language like ‘ramp and elevator access’ ‘top floor rooms include lift’ to ‘entire unit wheelchair accessible’.  

Portugal presented the highest number of hotels offering disability access across both search engines, with a 2.4% accessibility rate, but the figure is still low compared to 27.8% of hotels offering pet-friendly rooms. 

“The accessibility market is hugely under-represented and badly serviced,” said Paula.

“We conducted this research to evidence just how far down the priority ladder disabled people are, but I still can’t believe it’s easier to book a hotel for dogs than disabled people."

For more information about World Accessible Holidays visit worldaccessibleholidays.co.uk