Accessible Tourism After the European Accessibility Act: Signalling in Hotels and Private Accommodation Across Four European Union Countries

Abstract

The European Accessibility Act (Directive (EU) 2019/882) has applied, since June 2025, extending binding accessibility requirements to the e-commerce infrastructure through which tourism is sold. Whether that obligation is visible in tourism markets remains largely untested, and existing evidence covers hotels alone. Accessibility is examined across three layers in four member states differing in the operational maturity of their accessible tourism policies: Croatia, France, Greece and Portugal. The study documents national programmes and transposition, audits thirty-two tourist board websites and records the features advertised by 400 providers, half hotels and half private accommodation, across twenty cities matched by destination type. Providers in countries with operationally mature programmes advertise more (mean index 1.25 against 0.70 on a 0–10 scale), though with four countries, this compares cases rather than testing a policy effect. The gap between accommodation segments is larger and is measured within cities: private accommodation advertises 0.38 against 1.58 for hotels, in every country and in eighteen of the twenty cities (p < 0.001). Sensory features are advertised by 3.0% of properties against 37.0% for mobility, and one of the twenty-seven audited websites with an assessable listing interface displays accessibility on provider listing cards. The pattern is consistent with obligation setting a floor and visibility governing what rises above it, which one cross-section cannot establish.