Disabled people are forgotten clients when it comes to holidays. For example, booking a pet-friendly family holiday is approximately 24 times easier than booking a European break with disability access – that’s according to recent research we’ve completed in house at World Accessible Holidays.
Sadly, as the founder, this is no surprise to me. I’ve spent hours and hours poring over hotel websites all over the world for our customers, only to find out that hotels are happy to shout about how you can take your dog, but you need to be an investigative journalist to find out what accessibility facilities they have.
Our data shows that 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.
Disabled people are underserved
Around 37% of family rooms across ten European countries on booking.com ticked the ‘pet-friendly’ box, but only 1.5% offer disability access. How can this be the case in 2025?
Across the 10 European countries we 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, just half a per cent 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. It’s mind-blowing.
These statistics are disappointing but as I said, not surprising. 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 disabled 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.
We analysed data in France; mainland Spain; Italy; Greece; The Antalya region in Turkey; Croatia; Portugal; Spain’s Canary Islands; Cyprus and Majorca.
100% of the 10 areas we 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.
What becomes more confusing again for customers, is that information presented by hotels often varies, causing 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’. If there’s no consistency in reporting, it’s harder to find the hotels, harder to work out if they have what you need, so it’s no wonder customers with disabilities often opt not to travel.
Portugal has 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 role travel agents can play
I established my business, World Accessible Holidays, after experiencing this disparity first-hand. My son is a wheelchair user, and the limited holiday options and stressful booking process drove me to set up something better. I just kept thinking to myself, ‘There has to be a better way’.
We strive to make holidays abroad less stressful for disabled individuals travelling with their families and carers, both adults and children. The business arranges flights and accommodation at high street prices but also meets accessibility needs.
The accessibility market is hugely under-represented and badly serviced. There are a few good specialist operators, but they are very expensive, and out of reach for many disabled families.
Alternatively, if you try to book with a mainstream operator, it’s virtually impossible to guarantee an accessible room and the booking process is extremely disjointed. Booking platforms rarely list accessible rooms in a clear-cut way or have the option to book an accessible room with equipment.
My advice to anyone working as a travel agent would be to get very clear accessibility needs from clients and speak to hotels to ensure their facilities match those needs. This doesn’t mean just finding out if they have ramps.
Travel agents need to do more than this. If they are a manual wheelchair user, would they be able to manage the ramps they have? Being specific is very important because every disabled person’s requirements can be different, and this is the personal level of care needed. This is the level of detail that is missing from websites and online booking sites and the area where agents can add the most value.
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. At World Accessible Holidays we are working to change that — because people deserve more options than pets.
