By Denis Sheehan MIH: Hospitality progresses towards Liberty.
The Blue Badge Access Awards were launched earlier this week to reward exceptional accessibility and inclusivity shown by venues in the hospitality, leisure, and tourism industries.
Twelve awards will be presented in October, including Best Bar, Best Spa, Best Historic Building, and Best Conceptual Design.
The quirky ‘Ludicrous Loo Award’ returns, alongside new for this year, The Ridiculous Ramp Award.
The organisers are keen to set a gold standard for encouraging all in hospitality and catering to get accessibility right for disabled people and making it stylish, thoughtful, and innovative.
Why economically this initiative needs further progress
There are 14.6 million disabled people in the UK.
Equating to more than 1 in 5 consumers with a disability.
The spending power of disabled people and their households is estimated to be £274 billion a year.
A report by Purple Pound shows UK hospitality and catering businesses are closing their doors to approximately £163 million a month by ignoring the needs of disabled people.
Speaking of the opportunity presented by disabled customers Robin Sheppard President of Bespoke Hotels and Co-Founder of the BBAA said: “We have a long way to go, but the industry is making good progress towards ‘Liberty’.
“The freedom to go to a hotel where you are not dreading the bathroom or the toilet.
“Where your room doesn’t look like a hospital ward.
“Where the electric curtains can be controlled from the bedside and where you can transfer from a wheelchair to a hotel bed unassisted because it has been designed at the right height or even better there’s a concealed hoist.
“We invested in 18 Liberty suites at our own Hotel Brooklyn in Manchester which brought in additional revenue of £132,000 last year. That’s 100 an extra bed nights every 4 weeks.
This along with associated events contributed to a combined income of £217,000 from accessible facilities.”
Further information about the Blue Badge Access Awards is available here.
