Expanding Your Market: Accessible Customer Service Practices for Hotel and Lodging Guests with Disabilities

Maintaining Accessible Features for Customers

Attention to detail also plays a major role in maintaining a hotel’s accessible features. Sidewalks blocked by large trash receptacles, lowered reception desk areas filled with decorative vases, routes to public restrooms blocked by supplies, and poorly placed, oversized furniture in accessible rooms all convey to the customer with a disability a lack of understanding about accessibility. Hospitality is not provided when a guest cannot get to the front door, register at the front desk, eat in the restaurant, or maneuver around his room.

Without training, housekeeping staff and bellmen can unwittingly compromise the best intentions to provide access. For example, if an employee places the television remote control atop a tall chest of drawers or leaves the adjustable shower head at the highest position, then a guest who uses a wheelchair cannot reach them. If the housekeeping staff adjusts the thermostat or opens the guest room curtains during a post-arrival room cleaning, a guest who is blind may be left in an uncomfortable and possibly embarrassing circumstance. With instruction and consistent service, employees can maintain accessible features and raise the level of a hotel’s guest satisfaction rating.