The Blue Badge Access Awards (BBAA) is searching to find the most exceptional accessibility options for disabled people at hotels, restaurants, leisure, and tourism venues globally.

BBAA is run by Fiona Jarvis, Founder and CEO of Blue Badge Style, and Robin Sheppard, Chairman of the Institute of Hospitality, united by their mission to celebrate thoughtful and stylish inclusive design.

To encourage hospitality industry bosses, architects, and designers worldwide to consider the ways in which they can address the needs of disabled people and to make their experience more joyful and inclusive, the awards recognise exceptional accessibility for disabled people through thoughtful design, innovation, and liberty in the hospitality industry.

12 categories will award the best accessibility in bars, hotels, restaurants, historic buildings, and any public venue in the hospitality sector. Nominations can be made by the public, design professionals, venue managers, and owners in the hospitality business.

Categories include the Access Champion of the Year Award and two Conceptual Design Awards, along with the most Accessible Toilet Award 2023.

BBAA 2023 will take place at the Sun Street Hotel in London on 25 April 2023. The awards are now open now open for nominations on the Blue Badge Access Awards website.

Fiona said: “These are the most testing times that anyone, in the hospitality industry & beyond, will have ever experienced. However, I urge owners, managers, designers, architects, developers to consider how you can improve accessibility within your establishment.

“And, of course, for those that have already addressed accessibility imaginatively and thoughtfully the Blue Badge Access Awards will give recognition to your efforts.”

Nearly one in five working adults have some kind of disability and the spending power of disabled people and their households is worth over £274 billion per year to UK businesses, Purple Pound figures show.

Fiona added: “If you have gone the extra mile to make your venue accessible to everyone, and in doing so you have treated disabled guests as customers rather than ‘compliance issues’ then you are just what we are looking for”.

In the 2019 Blue Badge Access Awards, The Arnold Fewell Award for Most Inclusive was won by

A Changing Places facility was recently installed at a South Leicestershire park to make the public toilets more accessible for disabled people.

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