A woman with red hair wearing a green jacket talking to two women sitting at a dining table in a restaurant. The women at the table are smiling and engaged in conversation. The table is set with cups, bowls, and cutlery. The restaurant has framed artwork on the walls and large windows allowing natural light. Bags and personal items are placed on the windowsill.

Accessibility is often treated as a compliance task. I see it as part of the guest experience, commercial strategy and brand reputation.

I’m Elaine Hughes, a Luxury Accessibility Experience Strategist and founder of Inclusive Hospitality Co.

I work with luxury venues, hotels and hospitality businesses to identify the barriers they may not realise are there, then turn that insight into practical changes across the booking journey, guest experience, staff confidence and commercial strategy.

My work brings together professional accessibility expertise, lived experience, hospitality insight and a clear understanding of how disability and neurodivergence affect customer experience.

Why This Work Exists

A venue can have accessible features and still lose the booking.

That happens when accessibility is hard to find, poorly communicated, inconsistent across the guest journey or dependent on someone asking the right question.

Disabled and neurodivergent guests are often left doing extra work just to understand whether a venue can meet their needs.

That uncertainty affects confidence.

And confidence affects whether someone enquires, books or quietly goes elsewhere.

My role is to help venues spot those gaps and fix them in a way that is practical, commercially useful and right for the way the business operates.

My Approach

My approach is practical, commercial and built around the way hospitality businesses actually operate.

I look at accessibility across the whole guest journey, not as a separate box-ticking exercise.

That can include:

  • website and booking journey

  • language and accessibility messaging

  • imagery and representation

  • staff confidence and communication

  • physical guest experience

  • enquiry and adjustment processes

  • accessibility statements

  • commercial positioning

  • training and implementation

The aim is not to create another document that sits in a folder.

It is to help teams understand where accessibility is creating friction, what needs to change and how to embed improvements in a way that works for both guests and the business.

The goal is not to become known as “the accessible venue”. The goal is to be known as an exceptional hospitality business where accessibility is expected as part of the experience.

Banquet table with white tablecloths, set with white napkins folded into triangles, silverware, and empty white plates, in a well-lit room with large windows, wooden beams, and string lights on the ceiling.
A man with a beard and tattoos wearing a striped apron is preparing food in a kitchen. He is leaning over a counter, garnishing a salad with microgreens and lemon slices on a white plate. A large cake with a textured topping is also on the counter. In the background, there are kitchen appliances, shelves, and utensils.

Experience and credentials

My work is backed by both professional training and practical experience across accessibility, hospitality and customer experience.

You can include these as a clean credential block:

CAE Graduate Access Consultant

Forbes-featured expert

LinkedIn Top Voice

Purple Tuesday Ambassador

Founder of Inclusive Hospitality Co

Creator of the F’AIRE™ framework

Hospitality and wedding industry speaker

Experience delivering accessibility, inclusion and strategic advisory work

The F’AIRE™ Framework

F’AIRE™ is the framework that underpins my consultancy and training work.

It looks at:

Fairness

Accessibility

Inclusion

Representation

Excellence

Experience+

It gives businesses a practical structure for moving from good intentions to consistent, visible and commercially useful accessibility.

A scenic view of a poolside at sunset with a view of the ocean, surrounded by palm trees and cabanas.

Who I work with

I work with:

luxury hotels

wedding and event venues

country estates

boutique hospitality businesses

venue groups

guest experience and operations teams

The strongest fit is a business that already cares about service and quality, but knows accessibility is not yet as clear, confident or embedded as it could be.

Elegant event space with high ceilings, large windows, two chandeliers, and a long table set with candles and floral arrangements for a formal gathering.

Trusted by organisations, event leaders and businesses

“Elaine led a disability inclusion workshop for our team at Turtle Bay, providing invaluable insights from her lived experience. Her guidance and support were truly transformative, giving us knowledge we couldn’t have gained elsewhere.”

Olajide Alabi
People Experience & Culture Leader
Turtle Bay

“Working with Elaine Hughes on the accessibility requirements for PeakeFest has been an absolute game-changer… Her advice and insights have been priceless, giving me confidence and clarity to make PeakeFest more inclusive.”

Nicola Peake / PeakeFest

“Elaine gave me constructive and practical advice about the importance of working with clients with disabilities, not just from an inclusive perspective, but from a financial one as well.”

Sarah Bolitho

Want to understand where accessibility may be creating friction in your venue or guest journey?

Complete the short enquiry form and tell me a little about your business, what you are trying to improve and where you think the gaps may be.

Request an Accessibility Opportunity Call