{"id":978,"date":"2017-11-15T10:03:01","date_gmt":"2017-11-15T02:03:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sepiadesign.com\/?p=978"},"modified":"2025-06-26T18:40:29","modified_gmt":"2025-06-26T10:40:29","slug":"hotels-more-accessible-for-all","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sepiadesign.com\/newsepiasite\/hotels-more-accessible-for-all\/","title":{"rendered":"Hotels More Accessible for All"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>Hong Kong, 15 November 2017<\/strong> &#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8211; Founder and Managing Director of <em>Sepia Design Consultants Limited<\/em>, <strong>Thomas Schmidt, AIA, LEED AP<\/strong>, was cited in the <em>South China Morning Post<\/em> for his innovative product design entry in the inaugural <a href=\"http:\/\/access.bespokehotels.com\/\"><strong>Bespoke Access Awards<\/strong><\/a>.  The UK-based awards program emphasizes inclusive and accessible hotel design.&nbsp; Schmidt&#8217;s entry consisted of a Bluetooth-connected wrist-mounted device which helps guests navigate through hotels.  The wrist-mounted gadget quietly assists guests with a wide range of disabilities or impairments access their guestroom, and navigate throughout a hotel and its surrounding grounds.&nbsp; <\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image alignleft size-large is-resized\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"688\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.sepiadesign.com\/newsepiasite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/Blind-Guest-1024x688.jpg?resize=1024%2C688&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1142\" style=\"width:546px;height:367px\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/sepiadesign.com\/newsepiasite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/Blind-Guest-scaled.jpg?resize=1024%2C688&amp;ssl=1 1024w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/sepiadesign.com\/newsepiasite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/Blind-Guest-scaled.jpg?resize=300%2C202&amp;ssl=1 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/sepiadesign.com\/newsepiasite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/Blind-Guest-scaled.jpg?resize=768%2C516&amp;ssl=1 768w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/sepiadesign.com\/newsepiasite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/Blind-Guest-scaled.jpg?resize=1536%2C1033&amp;ssl=1 1536w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/sepiadesign.com\/newsepiasite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/Blind-Guest-scaled.jpg?resize=2048%2C1377&amp;ssl=1 2048w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/sepiadesign.com\/newsepiasite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/Blind-Guest-scaled.jpg?resize=150%2C101&amp;ssl=1 150w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/sepiadesign.com\/newsepiasite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/Blind-Guest-scaled.jpg?resize=400%2C269&amp;ssl=1 400w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/sepiadesign.com\/newsepiasite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/Blind-Guest-scaled.jpg?w=2340&amp;ssl=1 2340w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Can technology improve the hotel experience for guests with disabilities?<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>After developing a friendship with an elderly gentlemen with Parkinson&#8217;s Disease, Schmidt added, <em>&#8220;I was inspired to create something after seeing the difficulty my friend had in getting around Hong Kong on his own.&#8221;<\/em>&nbsp; While still at the concept stage, Schmidt is currently sourcing venture capital to further develop his idea into a commercially-viable product.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>[download id=&#8221;980&#8243;]<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<h6 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Editor&#8217;s Note:\u00a0 Thomas Schmidt, AIA, LEED AP <\/strong>is the founder of <a href=\"https:\/\/sepiadesign.com\/newsepiasite\"><strong>Sepia Design Consultants Limited<\/strong><\/a>, an award-winning design consultancy specializing in creative and sustainable design solutions for the hospitality industry.\u00a0 Schmidt is also author and illustrator of the award-winning <a href=\"http:\/\/www.kakibubu.com\"><em>Bumbling Traveller Adventure Series<\/em><\/a> which seeks to promote environmental and cultural awareness through entertaining mysteries and adventures, which was recognized by the American Institute of Architects (AIA) through a 2010 Chapter Citation.<\/h6>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hong Kong, 15 November 2017 &#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8211; Founder and Managing Director of Sepia Design Consultants Limited, Thomas Schmidt, AIA, LEED AP, was cited [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[35,6,61],"tags":[75,74,56,19],"class_list":["post-978","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hotel-design","category-news","category-sustainability","tag-accessible-hotels","tag-bespoke-access-awards","tag-sepia-design-consultants-limited","tag-thomas-schmidt"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pgwalJ-fM","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sepiadesign.com\/newsepiasite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/978","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sepiadesign.com\/newsepiasite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sepiadesign.com\/newsepiasite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sepiadesign.com\/newsepiasite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sepiadesign.com\/newsepiasite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=978"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/sepiadesign.com\/newsepiasite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/978\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1596,"href":"https:\/\/sepiadesign.com\/newsepiasite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/978\/revisions\/1596"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sepiadesign.com\/newsepiasite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=978"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sepiadesign.com\/newsepiasite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=978"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sepiadesign.com\/newsepiasite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=978"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}