Planning a big family vacation is complicated enough. Now imagine booking a hotel that promises a wheelchair-accessible bathroom, step-free access or another essential accommodation, only to arrive and discover it isn’t actually usable.
According to new research from travel agency Fora, that happens more often than you might think.
In its inaugural Fora Focus: Family Travel and the Access Economy 2026 report, Fora found that a whopping 90% of its surveyed travel advisors who have booked accessible travel say online accessibility information can be incomplete, outdated or contradictory. Nearly half (46%) say it’s often or always inaccurate.
Even more concerning? Nearly one-third of those advisors (31%) have had a client arrive at a property only to discover that a promised accessibility feature was missing or unusable—think an accessible hotel room or bathroom that doesn’t meet the traveler’s needs, or difficulty navigating entrances and other areas of the property.
And with multigenerational vacations booming, getting those details right is becoming increasingly important.
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More Family Trips Come With Accessibility Needs
Fora commissioned YouGov to survey 2,592 U.S. adults and separately surveyed 1,359 of its travel advisors, 910 of whom have booked accessible travel. The report was led by Karen Morales, Fora’s Accessible Travel Lead and a wheelchair user, whose lived experience has helped shape the company’s approach to accessibility, advisor training and work with travel partners.
Among consumers planning a multigenerational trip within the next three years, 56% say someone in their group will need some type of accommodation.
And we’re not just talking about wheelchair access.
The most commonly reported needs among families include limited walking endurance or stamina (48%), food allergies or dietary requirements (37%) and medical equipment or medication (36%). Nearly seven in 10 families with accessibility needs say their group has more than one.
“I think it’s a huge misconception to think that accessible travel is niche,” Morales tells Parade. “When you think about your own life, I have yet to meet someone who doesn’t have someone in their life that moves a little more slowly, has a food allergy or manages a chronic condition. These are the travelers we book for.”
It also isn’t exclusively an issue for older travelers. While grandparents frequently require accommodations, more than one-third of consumers with accessibility needs in their multigenerational group say a parent or another adult between 18 and 64 will need one. Nearly one in four say a child or teenager will.
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Travelers Are Willing to Pay More to Get It Right
Here’s where the travel industry may want to pay attention: Families aren’t necessarily looking for the cheapest solution.
A sizable 78% of consumers planning a multigenerational trip say they’d pay more to ensure everyone’s accessibility needs are properly met.
And these can be big-ticket vacations. Among Fora advisors who have booked accessible travel, 44% say their largest accessible booking in the past year topped $10,000, while 78% say accessible trips generate the same or higher spend than their average booking.
For many travelers, that extra money appears to be buying peace of mind. Almost a third of respondents planning a multigenerational vacation say they’re stressed about whether a hotel or other lodging will actually meet their group’s needs, while nearly as many are anxious about finding accurate information before they arrive.
Even travel advisors say getting a straight answer can be difficult.
Hotel room and bathroom details are among the hardest pieces of accessibility information for advisors to verify, cited by 44%, while 41% struggle to find reliable information about access around a property. Excursions and activities are even trickier, with 47% citing them as particularly difficult to research.
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There Is Some Good News
And the industry does appear to be making progress. Nearly half of the advisors who have booked accessible travel say accessibility efforts have improved over the past two years, with hotels receiving the most credit for improvement, followed by cruise lines.
Those improvements could matter to far more travelers than the industry might once have assumed. Two-thirds of Fora advisors surveyed have already booked a trip for someone with an accessibility need.
“I wish every hotel would lean into accessibility as an extension of their service,” Morales says. “It’s about hospitality: opening that door a little wider to those who need some extra help.”
She likens it to inviting someone with an accessibility need into your own home. “You would never invite someone over for Thanksgiving who uses a wheelchair or has a food allergy without planning for it, confirming the details and making sure they could be included.”
For hotels, Morales says that means being upfront and specific about exactly what they can provide rather than leaving an essential accommodation to chance.
So the takeaway for families planning that big reunion trip may be surprisingly simple: Don’t assume that “accessible” on a website tells you everything you need to know.
Confirm the specifics before you book. The fastest and easiest way is still the old-school one: pick up the phone. And when those details could make or break a vacation, getting them in writing isn’t a bad idea either.
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