Expedia and Hotels.com agree to provide information for disabled travelers

Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Expedia Inc. has agreed in a California court to add content and search features to its travel services sites Hotels.com and Expedia.com to enable people
with physical disabilities to reserve hotel rooms that can accommodate them with such things as wheelchair access or Braille signage, Expedia says.

Advocates for the rights of disabled consumers hailed the settlement as setting an important precedent that could open up more if not all online travel
services to U.S. adults with physical disabilities.

“Our settlement has the potential to revamp the entire travel industry if competitors of Hotels.com and Expedia realize this is a win-win situation for
both disabled consumers and the travel industry,” says Victoria Ni, a staff attorney at Public Justice, a public interest law firm. She notes that disabled
consumers in the U.S. spend more than $10 billion a year on travel.

Public Justice and law firm Disability Rights Advocates represented the plaintiffs in Smith v. Hotels.com L.P. in California Superior Court for Alameda
County.

Expedia has launched an ongoing program to make its travel services sites more useful to disabled people, the company says. “Hotels.com and Expedia worked
closely with Disability Rights Advocates to resolve this issue, and we are pleased with the solution we developed,” says Scott Booker, chief hotel expert
and guest advocate, Hotels.com. “Our customer service and technology teams are working carefully to implement changes to our sites which will enable travelers
to search and book properties which meet their accessibility requirements.”

Co-plaintiffs Judith Smith and Bonnie Lewkowicz are members of AXIS Dance Company, a not-for-profit organization of professional dancers, including some
with disabilities. Both Smith and Lewkowicz need wheelchairs when traveling.

“For years, travelers with disabilities have been unable to take advantage of the convenience and low cost options of booking hotel rooms online,” Lewkowicz
says. “Now, for the first time, I will be able to reserve a hotel room online that meets my needs, just like anyone else.”

The California case addressed the need to provide information on travel sites related to accessibility features at travel destinations, but did not cover
the use of technology, such as screen readers that turn text into audio files, that can make web sites themselves more usable by disabled people, Ni says.

Reproduced from http://www.internetretailer.com/dailyNews.asp?id=29201