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| TX: 26.07.05 - Hotel Access PRESENTER: LIZ BARCLAY |
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| Downloaded from www.bbc.co.uk/radio4 THE ATTACHED TRANSCRIPT WAS TYPED FROM A RECORDING AND NOT COPIED FROM AN ORIGINAL SCRIPT. BECAUSE OF THE RISK OF MISHEARING AND THE DIFFICULTY IN SOME CASES OF IDENTIFYING INDIVIDUAL SPEAKERS, THE BBC CANNOT VOUCH FOR ITS COMPLETE ACCURACY. BARCLAY But first a topic that I know is close to your heart Peter - hotels. You ring up and ask them all sorts of pertinent questions before booking a room, safe in the knowledge that it has all you need for an enjoyable holiday. But despite assurances that the shower's accessible the room only has a bath that you can't get into, or the room you were assured was suitable for someone with a mobility impairment is at the very furthest reaches of the longest corridor. And I know that you've got a few good examples of your own Peter. WHITE Well I mean things like Braille menus are a delight when you get them, the only problem is they're so rare and you're so delighted that you spend your time - I'm usually - about half an hour later I'm still reading the menu and everybody I'm with is waiting to eat. And the other thing is a lot of staff are fantastic in hotels and restaurants about reading the menu to you but there is that syndrome of the person whose idea of reading the menu to you is to say - The liver and bacon's very nice tonight - and then stops, so there's the sort of implication that that's all you can have. BARCLAY Now I know why you eat so many eggs and chips. WHITE Yeah had them imposed upon me. BARCLAY Well the Leonard Cheshire, the disability charity, says that all too often some of the UK's leading hotel chains fail disabled people, they aren't able to find suitable rooms and facilities despite new laws from last October requiring businesses to make reasonable adjustments to be accessible to disabled people. John Knight is head of policy at Leonard Cheshire. John, how did you conduct your survey? KNIGHT Well we conducted the survey by telephoning three or four hotels in each of nine hotel groups to make a reservation, posing as a friend of a potential disabled customer. So the research is qualitative and it's sort of indicative of the state of affairs in the British hotel industry. The big chains, I hasten to add, not the small operators. And 23 questions were asked covering four categories: reception and checking in; rooms; facilities and what special assistance might be available. And a point was given for each positive answer. So the maximum number of points would be 23 and an average score for each hotel group was developed from these responses. BARCLAY And I know that not - I don't think any hotel actually achieved maximum points but some were a lot better than others. And I also know that you looked at the accessibility for people with a whole of range disabilities but we thought that we'd talk to a few wheelchair users ourselves and just ask them and their spouses about their hotel experiences. VOX POPS I made a booking to stay at an hotel for the weekend. The booking was made a couple of months ahead and we were told by a very embarrassed receptionist that unfortunately the room they had told us would be available had in fact not been converted to make it suitable for a wheelchair. When you actually go into the bedrooms sometimes there isn't enough distance to clear the wheelchair into the actual room, to close the door. To get from reception into the bar and dining area there were four steps, they then produced a wooden plank from behind reception with an angle about 45 degrees, it was like the North Face of the Eiger for somebody in a wheelchair. Often disabled showers have a step you can't get over the step, so they're useless. You have to limit the amount of time you can go away because you work out how long you'd be able to do without a bath or a shower. A lot of plugs are not accessible because you have to lean too far down in a wheelchair which you might topple out of. I booked into another hotel after a lot of phoning around. The shock was to find the en suite had been built inside the room out of sort of wood and plasterboard. And I actually couldn't get through the door into the bathroom. So the manager took the door off - I could get to the washbasin but I couldn't get past the bath to the toilet, so I had to transfer sideways onto the side of the bath and shuffle along the bath on my backside to get to the toilet. They told us that they would find us another room and this turned out to be the penthouse suite on the 10th floor of the hotel. If there'd have been a fire and we had to leave the hotel very rapidly we wouldn't have been allowed to use the lift. It's not all bad - the Crown Plaza , Intercontinental, Express Holiday Inn and Holiday Inn give adjoining rooms for PAs free of charge. If they haven't got a double room they can actually get an adjoining room free for their PA. Things are improving but pressure needs to be put on organisations to continue to make improvements because it's far from satisfactory at the moment. ROBINSON Experiences of some wheelchair users. Now obviously John Knight the requirements for wheelchair users maybe a bit harder to meet in older hotels, for rooms simply aren't suitable and can't be changed, but what about some of the other examples that you've come across, other disabilities and the problems that those people have had? KNIGHT Well can I just say about physical access? We accept that some of the older buildings may not be made accessible, the cost of doing so may be disproportionate. But I think what we're asking for is a consistency of definition, of accessibility across the hotel industry, so you actually know what you're buying when you book the room, so that if you're told something is accessible then the chap who's just told us about the mountain he had to climb to get to the bar, he doesn't have to experience that, that he's told that. So there needs to be both a consistency across the industry and importantly an awareness, particularly with reception staff, who are usually the first point of contact between a customer and the hotel and they need to know what questions to ask the potential customer too, so there's no misunderstandings and both parties are operating on level ground. But we found, for instance, that only half the hotels - coming back to your point about people with sensory impairments for instance - only half the hotels had an induction loop in the reception. Now these are relatively cheap induction loops and yet they have an enormous positive impact for disabled people. BARCLAY Okay well let me put some of those points to Bob Cotton, who's chief executive of the British Hospitality Association, which represents hotels with something like 600,000 bedrooms in the UK. Bob Cotton, first of all, how much of this do you think is down to hotel staff and that lack of awareness of the requirements of people with disabilities? COTTON Well I think the report, which I welcome, actually raises the two issues. It's half about facilities and the need to update facilities and make changes to facilities where it's reasonable and possible to do. And part about changing staff attitudes and the way staff handle customers with particular needs. And the first is obviously often about investing money in making the changes and indeed getting planning permission to do those changes where it's possible to do and a lot has been done to date and will continue to be done. The second one is an ongoing task in an industry employing upwards of a million people. BARCLAY And is it a task that hotels are taking seriously? COTTON They are taking it extremely seriously but it's easy enough to say we're going to train our staff so they handle customers' needs in a sensitive way but it's an ongoing issue. BARCLAY An ongoing issue but surely by making those kind of cheap adjustments, for instance like having the induction loop on reception or by making sure that plugs are positioned somewhere where they can be reached, all of that will raise awareness in itself. COTTON Indeed but I mean the simple issue as you say, I mean let's take the simple example of Braille menus, obviously if menus are changing on a daily basis there isn't going to be a Braille menu but you would want your restaurant staff to be able to read out the menu to the customer but the training required to identify the customer, identify their particular needs and then to be able to do that task requires training, that is happening all the time and I think a lot of progress has been made. BARCLAY John Knight, do you think progress is fast enough? KNIGHT No I don't, I think there has been a lot of progress and I welcome it and the point of this report is to try and establish some sort of constructive dialogue between disabled people and the British hotel industry. I want the British hotel industry to aspire to capture the confidence of disabled people, so that when we book a room and we're told it's accessible it is, nothing less will do. BARCLAY Bob Cotton, nothing less will do. COTTON Fine and I take on board that and one thing which I'm very optimistic about - this autumn a new grading scheme is being launched for all accommodation within Britain by the Visit Britain, by the tourist boards in England, Scotland and Wales and within that we can put some real accessible standards so that customers will be able to know from the grade of the hotel and the accommodation what they can expect. BARCLAY Bob Cotton from the British Hospitality Association, John Knight from Leonard Cheshire - thank you both very much. Back to the You and Yours homepage The BBC is not responsible for external websites |
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