Spanish for accessible tourism: the words, and the current ones

CEFR B1 Reviewed by Jhoslyn Updated 2026-09-12

Draft copy. Every claim needs a native-speaker check before publishing — the byline is what makes this citable, so it has to be earned.

Start with the word order, because that is the lesson

Las personas con discapacidad. People with disabilities. The noun that comes first is persona, and everything else is attached to it with con.

That is not a politeness convention someone invented for Spanish — it is the wording of Peruvian law. La Ley General de la Persona con Discapacidad (Ley N.º 29973) names it that way throughout, and the national body is el CONADIS, el Consejo Nacional para la Integración de la Persona con Discapacidad. If you use the person-first phrasing you are using the official register, which is the safest place to stand when you are speaking a language you are still learning.

Compare the three ways Spanish can say it:

The first two are current. The third is the one to avoid in writing and with strangers, in Spanish as in English.

The terms, current and dated

This vocabulary changes, and getting it wrong is worse than having a small vocabulary. Where a term is contested, that is said rather than smoothed over.

One more that surprises people: capacidades diferentes and habilidades especiales sound kind, get used in tourism marketing, and are rejected by most disability organisations, who point out that a disability is a disability and softening the word mostly comforts the speaker. Peruvian law does not use them. Neither should you.

And la discapacidad is the condition; la deficiencia is a medical term for the impairment itself and belongs in a clinic, not a conversation.

Who accessible tourism is for

The World Tourism Organization’s categories, which Jhoslyn’s deck follows:

• las personas con discapacidad — motriz or física (mobility), sensorial (visual and auditiva), cognitiva and psicosocial
• las personas con condiciones físicas o mentales — diabetes, a heart condition, epilepsy. Not disabilities, but real needs when travelling
• la discapacidad temporal — someone con muletas, una mujer embarazada, someone recuperándose de una cirugía
• los adultos mayores
• los acompañantes — the family and friends who travel with them, and who are part of the market rather than an afterthought
• las personas con movilidad reducida — the broad umbrella phrase, often abbreviated PMR on signage

Her deck’s own definition is worth keeping word for word, because it is the phrase the industry uses: el disfrute equitativo y digno de los destinos, las actividades, los productos y los servicios turísticos.

The things themselves

Getting in and moving around:

• la rampa — the ramp · la pendiente — the gradient
• el ascensor — the lift · el elevador is also understood
• la baranda, el pasamanos — the handrail
• el escalón — the step · el desnivel — the change in level, the word for the thing that stops a wheelchair
• la puerta ancha — a wide doorway · el umbral — the threshold
• el piso podotáctil — tactile paving, the ridged strips underfoot
• el estacionamiento reservado — reserved parking
• el baño adaptado, el baño accesible — the accessible toilet
• la silla de ruedas · las muletas · el bastón · el andador
• el perro guía — guide dog. El perro de asistencia is the broader term; her deck’s animales de servicio is the translated version and is understood

Information, in more than one form:

• la señalización — signage as a system. La señalización adaptada is the accessible version
• la lengua de señas — sign language. In Peru specifically, la Lengua de Señas Peruana, abbreviated LSP. Note señas, not Spain’s signos
• el intérprete de lengua de señas — the interpreter
• el braille — un menú en braille, señalización en braille
• la audiodescripción — audio description
• el subtitulado — subtitling · los subtítulos — the subtitles
• la lectura fácil — easy-read, plain-language versions
• el lector de pantalla — screen reader
• el bucle magnético — hearing loop. Less common in Peru than in Europe, so expect to explain it

People and service:

• la sensibilización del personal — staff awareness training. The exact phrase her deck uses, and the one hotels put in their marketing
• la capacitación — training, more generally
• la atención profesional apta — properly qualified service
• la atención preferente — priority service. In Peru this is a legal requirement and you will see the sign in every bank and supermarket: a queue or window kept for personas con discapacidad, adultos mayores, mujeres embarazadas y personas con niños en brazos
• el transporte adaptable — adapted transport
• las rutas y los espacios accesibles
• las áreas de tranquilidad — quiet spaces, for people who need to be away from crowds and noise
• la alimentación variada — varied catering, for dietary needs

La cadena de accesibilidad

The idea that holds all of it together, and the phrase to remember:

¿De qué sirve encontrar un hotel con instalaciones adecuadas si no se puede llegar a él?

La cadena de accesibilidad is the whole journey — planning, booking, transport, arrival, the hotel, the sites, and getting home — and a chain is only as accessible as its weakest link. A hotel that advertises habitaciones accesibles but sits at the top of a flight of stone steps has not understood it.

The other governing idea is el diseño universal: designing so that as many people as possible can use something without a special adaptation being needed for each group. Not a ramp bolted on afterwards — a building you can get into.

The grammar this vocabulary forces

Ser for how it was built, estar for how it is today.

That last row is the useful one. Es accesible is a claim about the design. Está adaptado says a change was made to an existing building. Both can be true, and asking which you are being told is a genuinely useful question.

Two ways to ask what a place has. Hay asks whether the thing exists at all; tener and contar con ask whether this particular place has it:

• ¿Hay ascensor? — is there a lift at all
• ¿El hotel tiene baño adaptado? — everyday
• ¿El hotel cuenta con habitaciones accesibles? — formal, and the register a hotel’s own website will use back at you

Hay never changes for number: ¿hay rampa?, ¿hay rampas?, ¿hay dos ascensores? — always hay.

→ Hay, and where things are.

The false friend that matters here. Accesible means accessible. Asequible means affordable or attainable. Un hotel asequible is a cheap hotel; un hotel accesible is one you can get into. They are not interchangeable and a booking made on the wrong one goes badly.

Ask for numbers, not for adjectives

The single most useful habit, and it is a language habit as much as a travel one: accesible means whatever the person saying it thinks it means. So ask measurable questions.

• ¿Cuántos escalones hay desde la calle hasta la recepción?
• ¿Qué ancho tiene la puerta del baño?
• ¿El ascensor llega a todos los pisos?
• ¿La ducha tiene banco y barras de apoyo?
• Viajo con perro guía. ¿Hay alguna restricción?
• Mi mamá usa silla de ruedas. ¿Me puede describir la entrada, por favor?
• ¿El personal tiene capacitación en atención a personas con discapacidad?

¿Me puede describir…? is the one that does the most work. It is polite, it is impossible to answer with a reassuring yes, and it gets you a description you can judge for yourself.

In Peru, concretely

Peru is a hard country to travel in this way and an honest page should say so. Colonial centres were built long before anyone thought about it, pavements are narrow, and the word for a pavement here is la vereda, not la acera.

• Lima. The historic centre’s veredas are narrow and uneven and the jirones are busy. Museums and newer buildings in Miraflores and San Isidro are generally the easier ground, and atención preferente is honoured everywhere by law.
• Cusco. High, steep and cobbled. La altura is itself an accessibility question: at 3,400 metres a heart or lung condition matters more than it does at sea level. El soroche is altitude sickness, and hotels will offer mate de coca for it without being asked.
• Machu Picchu. Reached by el tren and then el bus from Aguas Calientes, and the site itself is steep, stepped and uneven stone. Ask the operator about el circuito — the route you will be assigned — and about steps specifically, and do it before you buy el boleto, because entry is by timed circuit and cannot be changed on the day.
• Arequipa and Trujillo have flatter centres than Cusco, which makes them easier starting points.

If you are describing what you are looking at rather than getting into it, Spanish for colonial architecture in Peru has the vocabulary for the buildings themselves.

Try it

1. Ask, formally, whether the hotel has accessible rooms.
2. Say your father uses a wheelchair.
3. Ask how many steps there are from the street.
4. Say the lift is out of order.
5. Choose: un hotel ___ for one you can afford; un hotel ___ for one you can get into.

→ 1 ¿El hotel cuenta con habitaciones accesibles? · 2 Mi papá usa silla de ruedas. · 3 ¿Cuántos escalones hay desde la calle? · 4 El ascensor está malogrado. (Malogrado is the Peruvian word; averiado is the neutral one) · 5 asequible / accesible.

Topics Getting aroundHealth and getting help