Introduction
Disabled travellers are the most under-served audience in UK tourism, despite being one of its most commercially valuable.
Nowhere is that truer than in the UK holiday park and caravan sector.
For decades, disability charities, community groups and family networks have been block-booking UK holiday parks. Not because operators marketed to them. Because caravan and holiday parks were the only domestic environment affordable, self-contained and predictable enough to accommodate large groups with complex needs.
That demand is still arriving. Most operators are still not designed for it. And most are still capturing only the low-margin, negotiated-rate end of what it could be. This is the commercial conversation UK holiday parks have not yet had with themselves.
Summer 2026 will be strong. Occupancy is up, forward bookings are healthy, domestic tourism is holding firm. None of that answers the harder questions: how to sustain performance in the shoulder seasons, how to build loyalty in a market with low switching costs, and how to convert a captive summer audience into year-round revenue.
The demographic that answers all three is already arriving at the gate. The question is whether operators are capturing its full value or losing it at the first friction point.
Market Size
The Tourism Purple Pound, VisitEngland’s estimate of the value of trips taken by disabled people and their travelling companions, is currently £14.6 billion annually, rising to £15.6 billion if accessibility barriers were addressed (VisitEngland, 2024). The wider Purple Pound, representing total disabled household spending power, is worth an estimated £274 billion per year to British businesses (VisitBritain).
The behaviour is as compelling as the scale. Inbound visits to England by disabled travellers and their companions average 12.2 nights, compared to 7.7 nights overall, at £863 average spend versus £819 (VisitEngland). Longer stays, higher spend, stronger return rates.
In 2024 alone, 20.8 million domestic overnight trips in England were taken by travel parties including a disabled member. Within those trips, 41% included someone with a non-wheelchair mobility impairment (dexterity, stamina, breathing); 39% included someone with a mental health impairment; 26% included someone with a cognitive or social-behavioural impairment; 14% included someone Deaf or with partial hearing loss; 10% included someone blind or partially sighted; and 6% included a full or part-time wheelchair user.
The implication for operators is significant. Accessibility focused on the wheelchair user alone addresses a minority of a minority. The commercial majority of this market has sensory, cognitive, mental health, or non-wheelchair mobility needs. Most UK holiday parks and caravan sites are not designed for those needs at all.
Your Position in It
UK holiday parks and caravan sites sit disproportionately close to this segment. More so than any other hospitality category.
Disabled travellers, by preference and by necessity, are more likely to holiday domestically. They choose self-contained environments over destinations with language barriers, unfamiliar service norms, or long-haul logistics. They travel off-peak. They plan further ahead. They travel in groups with family members, carers and companions who spend alongside them. They stay longer: 3 to 7 nights in a park versus 1 to 2 in a hotel, which means every friction point gets multiplied across the stay.
That is not a profile hotels or international resorts tilt toward. It is one the UK holiday park and caravan sector is already built around. The demographic overlap is there. What is missing is the operational alignment to convert it at full value.
The gap is structural. Holiday parks operate on a self-catering model with limited reception coverage, no daily housekeeping, no 24-hour staff intervention. Accessibility cannot be delivered through service recovery, as it often is in hotels. It has to be designed into the product. The site matters as much as the unit: paths, gradients, distance from parking to pitch, lighting, wayfinding, distance to central facilities. Hotel accessibility is largely contained within a building. Park accessibility is spread across an entire site. And the commercial model depends on ancillary revenue – pool, clubhouse, restaurant, entertainment, shop. If those environments are inaccessible, the accessible unit alone does not deliver the guest experience or the spend.
This is why disabled travellers who arrive at UK holiday parks are often not converted into repeat bookings, despite the sector sitting on exactly the guest profile it should be retaining. The audience is walking through the gates. Operators are losing them at the small points of failure, and a competitor who gets this right will take the loyalty that should have been theirs.
The Gap
For most UK holiday parks, accessibility begins and ends at the wheelchair. A small number of adapted units, a grab rail in the bathroom, a ramp at the clubhouse entrance, and the compliance box is ticked.
That model addresses roughly six per cent of the disabled travellers actually arriving at UK parks. The other 94%, travellers with sensory, cognitive, mental health, or non-wheelchair mobility needs, are left to navigate an environment designed without them in mind. Most won’t complain. Most just won’t come back.
This is the gap between what the sector thinks it’s doing and what disabled travellers actually experience.
The commercial consequences are measurable. In 2022, voco Manchester City Centre generated £217,000 in additional revenue in its first full trading year through its accessible provision. £132,000 came from accessible overnight accommodation. A further £85,000 came from accessible events – charity dinners, weddings, community bookings (VisitBritain).
That second figure is directly relevant to holiday parks. Parks live or die by their ancillary revenue. The £85,000 Manchester figure is the clearest available proof point that accessible provision drives ancillary spend, not only room spend. It is the revenue line most exposed to the question of whether disabled guests and their companions can actually use the facilities, not only access the bedroom.
European operators are demonstrating similar commercial upside at scale. EuroParcs, a Dutch operator with more than 50 parks across the Netherlands, Belgium, Austria and Luxembourg, has built accessibility into the product rather than the compliance layer. Their provision includes wheelchair-friendly design across doors, bathrooms and layouts; higher-level adaptations including hoists and adjustable beds; accessibility extending to parking, surroundings and leisure facilities; and detailed pre-booking guides that allow disabled travellers to book with confidence rather than hope.
Pierre & Vacances-Center Parcs Group, a separate European operator running Center Parcs sites in France, Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands, reported revenue growth of 3.1% year-on-year for 2024/25, with supplementary spending up 5%. That performance is built on a service model that treats disabled travellers as a core audience, not a specialist one.
The UK sector has the same opportunity and, arguably, a stronger commercial starting point. The demand is more concentrated here than in any other domestic hospitality category. The question is which UK operators will build for it properly, and which will continue to capture only the negotiated-rate, charity-booking end of the demand they are already receiving.
The Opportunity
Accessible tourism is, in commercial terms, a strong market with a high propensity to convert for operators prepared to meet it properly.
Every two disabled travellers are accompanied on average by an additional companion, which means every accessible booking carries a built-in multiplier on occupancy, food and beverage, and activity spend. Older adults and families with disabled members travel disproportionately in off-peak periods, directly addressing the seasonal trough most UK operators are trying to solve. One in four domestic holidaymakers with access requirements return to accommodation they have previously visited, specifically because it removes the stress and uncertainty of searching elsewhere (VisitEngland). That is a retention profile most operators would pay significantly to achieve, and it is earned through the product itself rather than through marketing spend.
Implementing a recognised accessibility standard such as ISO 21902:2021 Accessible Tourism for All provides a structured way to demonstrate a genuine commitment to inclusive service, and delivers operational benefits alongside the commercial marketing signal:
Reduced exposure under the Equality Act 2010
Lower long-term capital expenditure through designed-in accessibility
Reduced likelihood of costly retrofits and emergency upgrades
More predictable operating cost profiles
Protection against reputational and legal risk from poor provision
The commercial reality is clear. UK holiday park and caravan operators are already benefiting from measurable disabled and senior traveller demand while under-investing in meeting it properly. That leaves the door open for competitors who prioritise inclusive design to capture the segment more effectively, and to build the loyalty that comes with it.
The question for the sector is not whether this audience exists. It clearly does, and it is already arriving. The question is whether operators are prepared to build their product around the audience they are already serving, or continue to serve it incidentally while a competitor builds properly and captures the loyalty.
If you are thinking about where the next five years of revenue growth in your park estate will come from, this is the conversation worth having now. Talk to Direct Access.