Melo Villareal
Agoda.com Study Reveals Countries with Most Handicapped Accessible Hotels
Agoda.com, one of Asia’s leading hotel booking sites and part of Nasdaq-listed Priceline Group (Nasdaq:PCLN), announced today the results of its most recent Travel Smarts study which shows the United States has the highest percentage of handicapped accessible hotels.
The study looked at information provided by more than 600,000 hotels available for online booking on Agoda.com. Hotels in the United States are by far the most accessible, with 77% offering facilities for guests with disabilities.* Tied for a distant second are the United Arab Emirates, Ireland, and Portugal. Fifty five percent of the hotels in each of those countries offer facilities for guests with disabilities.
Top 10 Countries with Highest Percent of Accessible Accommodations
- United States 77%
- United Arab Emirates 55%
- Ireland 55%
- Portugal 55%
- New Zealand 54%
- Mauritius 53%
- Italy 52%
- Norway 52%
- Puerto Rico 51%
- Israel 49%
“We are pleased to see so many hotels offering facilities for guests with disabilities since making travel more accessible is what Agoda.com is all about,” said John Brown, Chief Operating Officer.
Many factors influence whether hotels will have accessible facilities, including local laws and regulations, the type of visitors who come to the destination, and the age of most accommodations. United Arab Emirates, for example, has seen a more than decade-long building boom resulting in many newly-built hotels, which are more likely to be accessible. In the capital, Abu Dhabi, 90% of the hotels have handicapped facilities.
Pilgrimage destinations also tended to have higher accessibility rates, according to the study. In Fatima, Portugal, Huelva province in Spain, and Lourdes, France more than 60% of hotels reported that they had facilities for disabled guests.
No Asian countries made the top 10 list. Singapore was the highest ranking Asian country, coming in 18th place overall with 40% of its hotels on Agoda.com offering facilities for guests with disabilities. Other countries in Asia didn’t fare as well. Five of the ten destinations at the bottom of the list were in that region. As for the Philippines, only 15% of its properties with Agoda.com have this facility.
Countries with Lowest Percent of Accessible Accommodations
- Uruguay 10%
- Vietnam 9%
- Nepal 8%
- Thailand 8%
- Azerbaijan 8%
- Cambodia 8%
- Bolivia 8%
- Georgia 8%
- Montenegro 7%
- Laos 1%
* of countries with more than 100 hotels listed on Agoda.com. Data is self-reported by hotels.
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