Hotel kicks out disabled woman who wanted to pay £1.20 charge in cash

Is hospitality dead? 

It would seem so given the way a disabled person with memory issues was allegedly treated by a hotel in Manchester, England, where a standard double room costs £52.00 per night. 

Margaret Jones, 63, arrived in the city on Thursday evening for an overnight stay at the Britannia Hotel on Portland Street. She had booked and paid in advance and arrived at the hotel around 9pm. 

At the hotel check-in, she said, she was informed by reception staff that she would be required to pay a recently introduced £1.20 ‘tourist tax’ before she would be allowed to access her room, the Manchester Evening News reported.

The hotel refused to accept cash for the payment when she handed over £1.50 in coins.

The woman said that due to her memory issues she primarily pays for things in cash as she often forgets her card PIN numbers, which can lead to severe panic attacks. 

She was told she must pay the City Visitor Charge levy by card. 

“I don’t like using my card, normally I carry cash all the time,” Margaret explained to the newspaper. 

“I’m reluctant to use my cards because I don’t remember my PIN numbers. I know where I stand with cash, my cards all look the same so I often forget which card I’m using.

“I gave them £1.50 in cash and they refused it. They told me they don’t take cash, and I explained about my mental impairment, but they didn’t seem to want to listen.”

Margaret, who uses a mobility walker, alleged she was then told by staff that she would need to leave the hotel if she couldn’t pay the levy by card. 

“I tried to use one of my cards and it wanted my PIN number,” she said.

“They told me that I couldn’t have my room and I couldn’t stay there. They actually turned me away from the building - I was pretty much left stranded in the freezing cold. I didn’t know what to do - I was shaking and crying.”

Margaret says she then stood outside the hotel for around 15 minutes, before contacting a friend, who offered to pay the levy via the internet or over the phone. She said this offer was also refused by staff.

“I’ve offered cash, payment by phone or the internet, and they wouldn’t accept any of it. They didn’t seem to care.”

Margaret said she eventually found a card that she could use for a tap payment without requiring a PIN and she was able to pay the fee and granted access to her booking for the night. But she said the experience has left her feeling anxious and embarrassed.

“It’s ludicrous,” she said. “I thought cash was legal tender. I told them I was at another Britannia hotel a few months ago and had no issues and they just said ‘well, different hotels have different rules’. Maybe I’m being too old-fashioned, but surely there’s a way of collecting the fee in cash or something? Not everybody has cards.

“I don’t mind paying the £1.20 city fee but when I've already paid for a room and to be told I can’t stay there and turned away in the cold, I think there’s something seriously wrong with that."

The newspaper approached both Britannia Hotels and Manchester Accommodation BID for comment. They were apparently too embarrassed to respond.

I think they might have underestimated the damage to both the hotel brand - remember the name Britannia Hotels - and to the cold, bleak city of Manchester. 

And this is not the only Manchester hotel at the centre of a "hospitality" furore. 

The Maldron hotel chain has been accused of trying to cash in on Oasis shows next year by cancelling bookings customers had made before the dates of the band's reunion tour had been announced.

Lily Stroud from Newcastle told the BBC she reserved rooms on two weekends at a Maldron Hotel in Manchester for July 2025 after speculation about the band's return.

But the hotel chain cancelled her bookings after the tour announcement due to a "technical error", with the same rooms now listed as unavailable.

A spokesman for Maldron Hotels said there was "an overbooking issue" at two of its locations and it was not an attempt to "resell rooms at inflated prices".

I'm sure everyone will believe them. 

Prices for some Manchester hotels for the weekends of the Oasis gigs are currently double those of the weeks before and afterwards.

Making tourism easier for people with disabilities

Travelling with a disability can be difficult. 

Even able-bodied people can struggle to cope with stairs,  access to public transport, and poorly designed public spaces. 

With 1.3 billion people globally estimated to have a significant disability, the United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) says it has joined with key partners to further make tourism more accessible to all.

The UNWTO Conference on Accessible Tourism was held for a second time in San Marino this week, powered by the Ministry of Tourism of Italy and in partnership with the European Accessibility Resource Centre - AccessibleEU, an initiative of the European Commission. 

The result was San Marino Agenda, "a clean action plan for disability inclusion in every part of the tourism sector".

Talk is, of course easy. Action is much harder. 

At this year's two-day event, over 200 delegates discussed policy advances such as the international standard ISO 21902, which caters both to host communities and visitors, and covers the entire tourism value chain. 

The event featured a ministerial toundtable, bringing together San Marino, Italy, Republic of Korea, Uzbekistan, Czechia and Israel, to discuss governments' roles in advancing accessibility through policies, strategies and standards.

Innovation in accessible tourism was one of the key themes, with speakers presenting new solutions in access to transportation, leisure, MICE and tourism services. 

These included SEATRAC helping wheelchair users to bathe in Greece, city-wide Braille touchpoints and the first certified blind tour guides in Cape Town, and the fully accessible waterfront in Rimini.

Small steps. 

With one in six people expected to reach the age of 65 by 2050 more action is clearly needed. 

"Baby boomers" already account for over one third of the EU population and 70% of the EU citizens with disability have financial means to travel.

So that's a key driver. Money talks. 

 

The UNWTO said: "The Action Agenda is seen as a game changer for disability inclusion and tourism's contribution to the Sustainable Development Goals, with a commitment from it's those attending the conference to achieving concrete results.

"It includes measures to advance training, develop measurement systems and increase industry awareness of the advantages of a diverse workplace."

Image: Matt Doheny, Scop.io