Laying the foundations: Recognise good practice
Top Tips
Recognise the businesses who join your accessibility programmes and promote their successes
Produce regular case studies to share learning and inspire others to continually improve
Signpost to local and national accessibility / inclusion awards and encourage business in your region to apply
Recognise good practice
There is a saying that ‘success breeds success’ and it is often true that learning about the successes of others can motivate us to follow a similar course of action in the hope that we will attain similar results. Celebrating success, which recognises good practice, is therefore an important part of accessible tourism development. It can both recognise the individuals and businesses who are taking part and motivate others to want to come on board.
There are several things you can do as an LVEP to share good practice:
Produce regular business case studies
Select several businesses across the tourism value chain which have made good progress and create case studies around them.
To develop relevant accessibility case studies, you could ask relevant businesses:
- how easy or difficult has it been for them to implement change?
- what successes have they had?
- what has helped?
- what has hindered?
- do they have examples of no cost and low cost ‘quick wins’ which have made a difference?
- do they have an Accessibility Champion? If so, what has been the impact on staff and the business?
- have they worked with other businesses to give or get support?
- what has the impact been on revenue?
- what has the impact been on customer experience?
- do they have visitor feedback which illustrates progress?
Gather feedback
Gathering feedback is another way to help you understand what you are doing well as a destination and to highlight areas for improvement.
- invite feedback from other stakeholders across the region, such as your local disability groups, to ascertain what the local community is saying about your initiative and the impact it is having on them.
- gather visitor feedback about the destination as a whole using visitor surveys and social media to illustrate progress made.
Promote local and national accessibility / inclusion awards
Awards are a great way of celebrating success, recognising the very best at both local and national level. Promote local and national accessibility / inclusion awards and encourage business in your region to apply, helping to raise their profile and that of your destination.
Where appropriate, you could also consider applying for awards as an LVEP which recognise your accessible tourism development work.
Case Study: Chester – EU Access City Award 2017
In 2017 Chester entered the EU Access City Award. Winning the award reflected the importance they placed on accessibility and the strategy they followed to achieve this. Key things they addressed were:
- improving destination accessibility with a specific focus on bringing the challenging medieval infrastructure in reach of everyone, ensuring that disabled visitors could access as much as possible.
- providing auxiliary services such as accessible toilets and Changing Places Toilets in and around the destination to provide support for people who might otherwise be unable to enjoy a day out.
- providing accessible transport networks near the destination such as an accessible bus fleet, wheelchair accessible taxis and rail networks.
- supporting services and policies such as a good ShopMobility offer, a variety of accessible parking locations, a 100% wheelchair accessible hackney fleet and an accessible public realm.
- having a mechanism for regular consultation and co-production with disabled stakeholders.
- providing information, advice and guidance in accessible formats.
Winning the award inspired them to do even more to improve the lives of disabled people in Chester and across the borough.
Find out more about what made Chester winners in this award in this detailed case study.
Award winners could raise their own profile as well as that of their destination through the PR and promotional activity they receive. This represents effective marketing at no additional cost to the business or the destination.
VisitEngland Awards for Excellence
VisitEngland’s tourism awards champion the very best of the country’s tourism industry, celebrating quality, innovation and best practice. The Accessible & Inclusive Tourism Award category recognises tourism businesses that excel in providing an inclusive customer experience, particularly for those with accessibility requirements.
Further information on accessibility initiatives and awards for accessible and inclusive tourism are provided in the Accessible and Inclusive Tourism Toolkit for Businesses.
- If you do not already include the Accessible & Inclusive Tourism Award as part of your local awards competition, introducing it will help to recognise the hard work of your businesses in creating more inclusive visitor experiences.
- It will also help to highlight accessible tourism within your region and to a wider audience.
