The factors that influence customer with disability experience in a hotel and its related emotional value outcome, an exploratory study

Abstract

This study deals with the issue of hospitality offered to people with disability and their families, when staying in hotels. The purpose of this study is to do a deep analysis about what are the common barriers that people with disability face during their stays in hotels and how their families feel in front of this situation. The final analysis is the result of the information obtained through qualitative research. This study utilizes in-depth interviews of nine participants, families from Barcelona that have a member with disability: seven with multi-disability and two with intellectual disability. Interpreted by the social model of disability, the results suggest that the challenges that participants confront derive from the physical design of the environment as well as the staff behaviors. Different value outcomes were found taking into account the condition of the person with disability as well as the condition of the family: Positive value outcome, negative value outcome and helplessness. In addition, the paper offers recommendations for hotel managers with regard to specific physical as well as interpersonal constraints to reduce difficulties faced by people with disabilities in their hotel experiences. The limitations found in this study are going to be used for giving recommendation for future researches.