Expedia Group Partners With French Government To Enhance Accessible Travel for Paris 2024
At Expedia Group, we’re always working to provide and improve equitable, inclusive, and accessible travel experiences. An important and growing sector is people traveling with disabilities, expected to grow to over 33 million travelers by 2028 in the US alone. They travel at nearly the same frequency as non-disabled travelers, and yet 96% experience some type of difficulty with their accommodations.
To improve the experience for those with disabilities traveling to Paris for the biggest event of the summer, we recently launched a pilot with the French Government and Acceslibre to provide detailed accessibility data on hotels and vacation rentals listed on our brands, including Expedia, Hotels.com, and Vrbo. In providing the correct and complete information needed to make informed booking decisions, such as the availability of braille and raised signage, visual alarms in hallways and wheelchair accessible parking, travelers have the details needed to determine if a property is the right fit based on their unique accessibility needs.
Thank you to the French government (Ministère Écologie Territoires) and ACCESLIBRE, which lists over 460,000 facilities in France, for the partnership. This is one example of how to build more inclusive experiences for travelers, and it’s just a start. As an industry, we can all do better. If you are interested in learning more, please visit https://www.linkedin.com/company/gouvernementfr/, part of the French Government.
