Hotels to have wheelchair-friendly accommodations as Tokyo readies for Olympic 2020

Host Japan is readying the Games village and related infrastructure for the world’s biggest sporting event- Olympics 2020. The country is expecting to have 4 crore annual inflow of tourists by the time of the Olympics in the year 2020.

And according to a survey conducted by the government last year, less than half percent of all the 10000 hotel rooms are barrier-free which by government’s rulebook means having an entrance wider than 80 centimetres (30 inches), a bathroom with handrails and no steps dividing rooms. Thus it has mandated all the hotels with more than 50 rooms to have wheelchair friendly accomodation.

“Through efforts to improve travel and lodging for the disabled, we hope to make the Games a success and create a society” where people with and without disabilities can live together, Olympics Minister Yoshitaka Sakurada told AFP on Tuesday.

Under the latest revisions made in the laws, which come into force from September one next year, at least 1% of rooms in newly built and refurbished hotels or traditional inns must be barrier-free for wheelchair users.