Laying the foundations: why do this?
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Learn more about accessibility to support your work
Understand the drivers for creating an accessible destination
Explore the guidance and support outlined in the business toolkit to help you
Understand the benefits of accessible and inclusive tourism
Accessible tourism benefits your destination in several ways, including:
- Improving customer service and the visitor experience;
- Meeting the needs of underserved markets i.e. disabled people;
- Responding to changing markets i.e. an ageing population;
- Tapping into the growth of ‘3G’ family holidays and breaks (where three generations of a family travel together);
- Ensuring that valuable business is not lost: one person with accessibility requirements can influence a whole group’s travel plans;
- Contributing to sustainable and responsible tourism product development;
- Growing visitor numbers, both domestically and inbound;
- Supporting resilience and recovery in times of crisis e.g. the COVID 19 pandemic;
- Creating more job opportunities for disabled people;
- Boosting the image of your destination.
- Helping you and your businesses meet your legal obligations.
The Equality Act 2010 and the Public Sector Equality Duty
Although there are a host of benefits to being more accessible and inclusive, there are also legal requirements under the Equality Act 2010 to not discriminate against people with protected characteristics, including disability.
In addition, public authorities must comply with certain legislation, including the Public Sector Equality Duty and the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility regulations 2018.
The Public Sector Equality Duty requires public authorities to consider discrimination and the needs of people who are disadvantaged or suffer inequality when providing services, including website information. You can find more details on the Public Sector Equality Duty on Gov.uk.
The Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility regulations 2018 requires public authorities to ensure their websites, including internal intranets, and mobile apps used by the public comply with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2 AA accessibility standard (some exceptions apply) and display an accessibility statement that explains how accessible the website or mobile app is.
Quotations
“Empathy is very important. We need to make sure that no one feels different, making sure that disabled people and others with access requirements who visit for the day, a month or a year get the same experience as everybody else and not a different one.”
Will Myles – Managing Director, Visit Isle of Wight
“We would love to do more with multi-generational holidays and the older market, people who are 75 and over wanting to revisit holidays that they had in their youth. We need to remember that inside many older people is the mind of a 30-40 year old, you can be looked on as old but inside you are not and still want to do many things.”
Malcolm Bell – CEO, Visit Cornwall
Explore the Accessible & Inclusive Tourism Toolkit for Businesses
The VisitEngland Accessible & Inclusive Tourism Toolkit for Businesses provides further information on the legal, commercial and ethical importance of accessibility, including guidance related to:
- Customer groups and their accessibility requirements;
- Providing an inclusive welcome with integrity and empathy at its heart;
- Providing inclusive features and facilities (whether physical, digital or operational);
- Marketing your accessibility to potential and existing disabled customers;
- Becoming a more inclusive employer and creating an inclusive internal culture;
- Measuring success.
Encouraging your LVEP team to explore the business toolkit will ensure that you have a common understanding of accessible tourism and that you are able to provide consistent information and advice to your businesses.
Quotations 2
“Although we are focusing on the big economic benefit in making improvements in accessibility in the visitor economy, there are improvements linked with health and wellbeing for local residents as well”.
Richard Hunt – former Strategic Lead: Visitor Economy, Suffolk Growth Partnership
To help with the familiarisation process, you may want to hold an in-house workshop with all your LVEP staff to introduce the business toolkit content and discuss how everyone can promote the toolkit to your businesses, partners and stakeholders.
The LVEP Business Toolkit Workshop in the downloads section of the toolkit.
