- The World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) estimates that one billion people (15% of the population) live with some form of disability and that accessibility to all tourist facilities, products and services should be essential to any sustainable tourism policy.
The CEO-CoFunder of Omnirooms -an expert web portal on this offer, winner of the 2017 Entrepreneurial Award from the Canary Islands Confederation of Businessmen- celebrates his first months of relationship with Dingus, explaining why he decided to join us and the value it has for the industry this segment of tourists.
How and why do you create Omnirooms?
Four years ago we discovered that 37 million Europeans with reduced mobility could not book online directly on 99% of hotel websites, nor on OTAs’ websites. This was something that surprised us because, according to the European Union, this market niche makes more than 170,000,000 overnight stays every year and generates expenditure on their holidays in excess of 350,000 million euros.
We decided to create Omnirooms.com with the intention of ending the discrimination suffered by these millions of Europeans. Our intention is that those with reduced mobility can book their holidays online, just as the rest of the world does.
What are the main features of the Omnirooms business model?
On our website the user can view photos of accessible rooms, photos of accessible bathrooms and, above all, can book directly without having to go to a physical travel agency, or to be asking hotel by hotel for information on the accessible rooms they have. This does not happen in the rest of the OTAs or in 99% of hotel websites at present.
By Business model in itself: a market niche of 37 million Europeans makes it possible for us to offer these users the facilities that the rest of the world has when it comes to booking a hotel.
The main innovation is simply to give visibility on our website to the accessible rooms that all hotels have by law and offer the possibility of booking them directly on our website. We are encountering a few problems when it comes to establishments having to map these types of rooms, but we hope that little by little they will all end up following in the wake of the big chains, which are already doing it with us.
What is the added value of the brand and its commitment to CSR?
This point is very important. Nowadays, when the corporate social responsibility of hotels plays a very important role in giving added value to the business, it is time for them to start thinking of people with reduced mobility as important customers. Not only for those who are in wheelchairs, but also for the elderly, people who had an injury a month before going on holiday and for example have a cast on their leg…
Our client is not seasonal, is usually accompanied by 3 other people on average and, as I said before, spends even more on holidays than the average client. It is time for hotel CSR to take a step forward and do their utmost to make visible all the economic effort they have made in adapting both rooms and facilities. It is time to’show off’ an accessible hotel that does not discriminate against this type of client.
What are the current prospects for Omnirooms?
We are now concluding agreements with more than 100 hotel chains, which will enable Omnirooms.com to offer more than 1,000 accessible rooms in 500 hotels to these 37 million Europeans with reduced mobility by the end of the year.
And finally… how would you rate the integration with Dingus?
Dingus is the Channel Manager for excellence in the Spanish market and especially in the Canary Islands, where our company is located. It has been a good idea to join Dingus, as most of the most important channels in the country have it as a Channel. It has been a safe bet and we are very happy about it.
