Accessibility statement

This website is run by The British Tourist Authority trading as VisitBritain. We want as many people as possible to be able to use this website.

For example, that means you should be able to:

  • change colours, contrast levels and fonts using in-browser settings
  • zoom in up to 300% without the text spilling off the screen
  • navigate most of the website using just a keyboard
  • listen to most of the website using a screen reader (including the most recent versions of JAWS, NVDA and VoiceOver)

We’ve also made the website text as simple as possible to understand.

AbilityNet has advice on making your device easier to use if you have a disability.

How accessible is this website?

We know some parts of this website are not fully accessible:

  • most older PDF documents are not fully accessible to screen reader software
  • some of the tables and graphs may be fully accessible, but alternative options are available.

What to do if you cannot access parts of this website

Please contact us on the details below should you require any content appearing on this website in a more accessible format, for example, a PDF.

More accessible formats may include: large print; easy read; audio recording and; braille.:

We’ll consider your request and get back to you within ten days.

Reporting accessibility problems with this website

We’re always looking to improve the accessibility of this website. If you find any problems not listed on this page or think we’re not meeting accessibility requirements, contact:

Enforcement procedure

The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) is responsible for enforcing the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018 (the ‘accessibility regulations’). If you’re not happy with how we respond to your complaint, contact the Equality Advisory and Support Service (EASS).

Technical information about this website’s accessibility

VisitBritain/VisitEngland is committed to making its website accessible, in accordance with the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018.

This website is partially compliant with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.1 AA standard, due to the non-compliances listed below.

Non accessible content

The content listed below is non-accessible for the following reasons.

Non-compliance with the accessibility regulations

It’s not possible for users to change text size without some of the content overlapping. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.4.4 (resize text). We plan to make text size change possible as soon as we can. 

Some of our filtering options are not labelled correctly, so users with a screen reader might have challenges in understanding the meaning of content. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.3.1 Info and Relationships

We plan to add labels to our filters as soon as possible. When we publish new elements we will make sure they meet accessibility standards.

Some of our tables are not properly structured, so users with a screen reader might have challenges in understanding the meaning of content. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.3.1 Info and Relationships. We plan to restructure our tabled content as soon as possible. When we publish new elements we will make sure they meet accessibility standards.

When we publish any new textual or visual content, forms, tabled content, filtering elements or documents, we will ensure accessibility standards are met or in the event we intend to keep it on our website after 23rd September 2020, we will ensure the standards are met by this date.

Disproportionate burden

Meeting some accessibility requirements by 23rd September 2020 currently present a disproportionate burden for our organisation. We are working on resolving all of the non-compliances and replacing our websites with fully accessible versions over a period of time. We will address some existing issues between now and March 2021. New websites will begin to replace existing ones from late 2021. 

This statement will be updated regularly with timings of fixes. If you require any material on the website in an accessible format, please contact accessibility@visitbritain.org
 

Content that’s not within the scope of the accessibility regulations

PDFs and other documents

Many of our older PDFs and Word documents do not meet accessibility standards - for example, they may not be structured so they’re accessible to a screen reader. This does not meet WCAG 2.1 success criterion 4.1.2 (name, role value).

Some of our PDFs and Word documents are essential to providing our services. For example, we have PDFs with information on how users can access our services, and forms published as Word documents. By September 2020, we plan to either fix these or replace them with accessible HTML pages.

The accessibility regulations do not require us to fix PDFs or other documents which were published before 23 September 2018 if they’re not essential to providing our services. For example, we do not plan to fix some of our older legacy documents.

Any new PDFs or Word documents we publish will meet accessibility standards.

Live video

Live video streams do not have captions. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.2.4 (captions - live).

We do not plan to add captions to live video streams because live video is exempt from meeting the accessibility regulations.

How we tested this website

This website was last tested on 23 September 2019. The test was carried out by using an accessibility testing tool - Monsido.

We tested our main website platform, available at www.visitbritain.org/

What we’re doing to improve accessibility

We have set up an Digital Accessibility working group that is leading the project to improve our website and make it more accessible.
We have identified the challenges and are working to resolve them by 23rd September 2020.

This statement was prepared on 23rd September 2019. It was last updated on 22 September 2020.