Accessible travel: How the industry has survived its first summer of COVID-19

The Coronavirus pandemic has hit the hospitality industry especially hard - including hotels that are accessible and cater to people with disabilities. After they have survived the first summer of the pandemic, hotel managers can now look back and draw early conclusions: How did they fare this year, and what are their hopes for the coming year?

Drastic times call for drastic measures. It might be an old phrase, but it happens to accurately describe the challenges the travel industry faced in this unprecedented year. Many industry operators and owners had to radically pivot, rethink, and create new concepts in an effort to make it through these difficult times. And here the New Year started off well enough: “Reservations and bookings for both hotels looked very promising and were well above the prior year level,” says Stefan von Schlotheim, Managing Director of FDS Hotel gGmbH. The company includes the Seehotel Rheinsberg and the Heidehotel Bad Bevensen, both of which are accessible and make sure guests with and without disabilities can enjoy a carefree vacation.

In the spring, the number of infections started rising, creating widespread uncertainty among travelers, and especially those who are at a higher risk for serious complications from the coronavirus due to their disabilities. This resulted in many cancellations of hotel reservations. The Bad Bevensen and Rheinsberg Hotels tried to make the best of a bad situation: “We made great use of this time and completed extensive renovations on technical systems - especially at the Seehotel Rheinsberg. This meant we took measures we would normally only implement during hotel closing dates."

Hotel Middelpunt is located right on the Belgian coast and another accommodation that offers its guests accessible relaxation. However, unlike von Schlotheim, Hotel Middelpunt manager Piet Tibergyn has nothing good to say about the time around the pandemic outbreak. He gives a drastic assessment of the consequences of the increased number of infections: "Our Hotel had to cancel all group activities – which make up nearly 85 percent of our business."

The summer had everyone breathe a collective sigh of relief for the first time in weeks – starting with the guests, who enjoyed their temporary regained freedom of travel and movement. Their enthusiasm quickly inspired the hotel business, which saw a rise in bookings again. Especially hotels with successful hygiene concepts saw a boom. Accommodations that have a lot of space were particularly lucky: “One of our biggest advantages is that the layout of our hotels is very spacious in the public areas. This allowed us to perfectly implement social distancing measures, resulting in no wait times in the restaurants,” explains von Schlotheim. The extra space, which was originally a consequence of accessibility settings and space requirements to accommodate the guests' auxiliary aids, is now what helps the hotels survive the coronavirus pandemic since the added space makes it easier to practice social distancing. And this also means guests don’t have to worry about getting too close to other patrons.

Apart from that, practical and well-thought-out hygiene concepts have been and continue to be a key aspect for the travel industry and keep businesses up and running. Hotel Middelpunt found a great way to support its guests: Service staff has replaced the breakfast buffets that used to be a prominent feature that made guests comfortable and start their day off happy and relaxed. “We now serve breakfast at the table. This is well received by guests, who were very understanding and considerate."

Since the start of the pandemic, Heidehotel Bad Bevensen and Seehotel Rheinsberg have also added an extra service to their respective portfolios: "We continuously communicate our current hygiene and infection prevention measures on our hotel website and send newsletters to our regular guests, enabling us to take away our target group’s fear of exposure."

Hotel operators aren’t the only ones who come up with creative ways to survive. Tour operators and travel companies are also hard at work: The team from RUNA REISEN in North Rhine-Westphalia, which specializes in vacation packages for people with disabilities offers all of its travelers an FFP2 mask to feel safer during flights. Of course, that’s still just a drop in the bucket since tour operators have likewise been devastated by the impact of the pandemic, forcing them to come up with different measures to compensate for their losses.

This summer went well but, “the so-called ‘lockdown light’ or partial lockdown in November definitely didn’t have a ‘light’ impact on the hotel and hospitality industry and has closed in on us faster than expected,” says von Schlotheim. "On the whole, this year has been a disaster for the travel, tourism and hospitality industries."

There are signs that this pandemic is still far from being over. Things have clearly not progressed as the industry sector had hoped. That’s why it’s important to stay positive and to look on the bright side of this unprecedented experience. Von Schlotheim maintains that people have already learned many lessons from the pandemic: He hopes that society will continue to be more considerate of others in the future, especially by offering continuous support to the elderly and people with disabilities - for example, when it comes to shopping or public transportation settings.

Hotel operators and guests already have much to look forward to in the upcoming year: "We had to postpone many activities. First we delayed them to the second half of the year and now we rescheduled things to take place next year," says Piet Tibergyn. Von Schlotheim predicts accessible tourism will initially focus on Germany and its neighboring countries in the coming year, as was the case this year. He is confident things will improve in 2021 and looks forward to welcoming many new and returning guests.

When asked about his plans for the future, Tibergyn gets down to basics: "The pandemic had a catastrophic impact on accessible travel. Our hope remains that 2021 will be a more successful year."