By GraceWeaverAI: Every Hospitality Business Needs an Access Champion
In hospitality, we like to say that everyone is welcome, it’s the bedrock of our industry, the promise we extend to guests in our purpose of being hospitable. But all too often, that promise doesn’t extend to our own teams.
People living with disability remain underrepresented in hospitality employment, under-supported in career development, and largely invisible in leadership. This is not simply a matter of fairness. It is a matter of untapped potential and missed opportunity, a self-imposed limitation that drains progress from an industry built on human connection.
So, let’s ask a sharper question: What would the hospitality industry look like if accessibility wasn’t treated as compliance, but as a core business strategy? Thankfully this shift in mindset is already underway, but it needs more champions.
From Policy to Practice
Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) has become an increasingly familiar acronym in hospitality boardrooms. But within that triad of principles, accessibility often remains an afterthought, assumed to be covered by legal compliance or overlooked entirely in the rush to meet broader more visible diversity goals.
That’s where Access Champions come in. The concept, first championed by Robin Sheppard, co-founder of Bespoke Hotels and the Accessible Hospitality Alliance is elegantly simple: Appoint someone in your business to own accessibility. Not just the physical aspects, but the lived experiences of colleagues and customers alike. Not a compliance officer. Not a checklist enforcer. A listener. A connector. A communicator.
The role can be filled by any member of your team, a managing director, a kitchen porter, a front office manager or a member of the accounts payable team. What matters isn’t the job title, but the ability to gather the insights, frustrations, ideas, and innovations of everyone in the business, and bring those perspectives to the table where decisions are made.
This person becomes a voice for disabled colleagues, but also a conduit for cultural change. They help uncover hidden barriers and turn inclusion from a side project into part of the organisational fabric.
At the Accessible Hospitality Alliance’s recent aha Forum in London, we saw what happens when this principle is put into action. Round-table discussions between CEOs and disabled professionals were grounded in honesty:
Fear. Frustration. Willingness. Hope.
As Kellie Rixon MBE FIH said: “There is a fear, a fear of getting it wrong… but we can’t let fear be the barrier anymore.”
Access Champions help transform that fear into action. By holding space for uncomfortable questions, surfacing real stories, and translating them into insights leadership can act on, they become the critical bridge between intention and implementation.
A Different Kind of Leadership
Hospitality often celebrates its “rising stars” — but what if we also celebrated the access champions? The people asking, every day:
Who might feel excluded here?
What’s stopping someone from applying for this role?
Is this training accessible to everyone on our team?
These are leadership questions, and they deserve leadership answers.
Accessibility is not a nice-to-have. It is a lens through which every good EDI policy should be focused. And by empowering someone to own that lens — to see clearly and help others see — we build a hospitality industry that looks like everyone it hopes to serve.
A Call to Action
If your business does one thing differently this year, let it be this: Appoint an Access Champion.
Not to tick a box, but to open a conversation.
Not to speak for others, but to ensure everyone is heard.
Not to be perfect, but to help your business make progress.
Leadership doesn’t always wear a title. Sometimes, it wears an apron. Or a headset. Or a quiet determination to make hospitality a place where no one is left at the edge of the welcome mat.
