Kick-Start programme: Prepare
Top Tips
Set clear aims and objectives
Identify a Project Manager
Create a project plan, agree measures, identify resources, stakeholders and budget required in partnership with your LVEP team
Create a project plan
Create a project plan to help you manage and track the process and meet the objectives of the Kick-Start programme within your chosen timescale for delivery.
Facilitate a project planning workshop
To introduce your team to the Kick-Start programme it is recommended that you run an in-house workshop.
Run a Kick-Start project planning workshop, available in the downloads section of this toolkit, with your LVEP team to:
- introduce the Kick-Start programme to your LVEP team;
- involve them in creating an action plan;
- identify the contributions they will make to the project / action plan;
- identify stakeholders.
Set your aims and objectives
Setting clear objectives for the programme will provide your LVEP team and wider stakeholder group with a shared understanding of what you want to achieve.
The aims and objectives of the Kick-Start programme are outlined in the Action Tip below. You may wish to add to these to reflect regional considerations.
Familiarise yourself with the aim and objectives of this programme below and consider whether there are any supplementary objectives you wish to add:
Kick-Start programme aim:
To improve the information on our destination’s accessible tourism offering
Kick-Start programme objectives:
To achieve this we will:
- identify existing accessible and inclusive products across the tourism value chain working with our stakeholders, including visitors and local communities, to achieve this.
- provide clear, consistent, relevant and accurate information about these products on our LVEP website.
- ensure that consumers can find this information easily and that our website is accessible for all potential visitors.
- initiate a B2B marketing campaign to engage more businesses and grow our accessible tourism offering.
- launch a B2C promotion campaign to showcase our accessible tourism products and engage visitors.
- signpost businesses to relevant disability awareness training.
- review this process and our offering to continuously improve.
Agree evaluation measures
Identify measures, or key performance indicators (KPIs), which can be used at the evaluation stage to determine whether the programme has been successful.
Some suggested KPIs for the Kick-Start programme are:
- the number of outbound clicks on the link from your industry website to the VisitEngland Accessible & Inclusive Tourism Toolkit for Businesses;
- the number of businesses engaging with you to be part of your B2C campaign;
- the number of stakeholders you have engaged with and identify the contributions they have made to the project;
- the number of businesses with accessibility information;
- the number of businesses undertaking staff training on accessibility;
- the number of hits on the Accessibility page of your website;
- the number of hits on AccessAble information for your region, if relevant.
Include some questions in visitor surveys to understand awareness of your destination’s accessibility and the effectiveness of the information provided. You may also want to evaluate the visitor experience: did visitors received a warm welcome?
Monitor any feedback about any aspect of your project from users, including your website and the quality of information you are providing.
Identify risks
Consider potential risks which may arise and develop a plan to mitigate or manage them. This will help to minimise disruption to the project and help to ensure that it is delivered on time. Risks may include things like:
- a business changes their accessible facilities part-way through the programme and does not inform you, leading to inaccurate information on your website;
- highlighting accessibility in your destination could lead to complaints from visitors who have had negative experiences in the past.
Identify resources and budget required
Whilst this programme is designed to work with the resources you already have, you will still need to consider the tasks to be undertaken, what needs to be delivered and who will be involved. If you have decided to incorporate any of the elements of the Enhanced programme in this process, additional capacity may be required, such as recruiting expert support. Where this is the case, additional funding will need to be allocated from within existing budgets or sourced externally.
Create a project timeline
Developing a realistic timeline for the Kick-Start programme will enable you to plan effectively. As a rough guide, allow up to one year to deliver this programme as part of your ongoing activities. The actual time needed will be dependent upon the resources you are able to allocate. It is worth bearing in mind that the capacity of businesses to engage with the programme will be affected during peak periods.
Indicative timescales are provided below:
Consider each of the phases within the project and identify a timescale for each.
Project phase Indicative timescale Step 1: Prepare
- identify resources, budget and stakeholders
- develop project plan
1 month Step 2: Provide accessibility information on your LVEP website - identify relevant businesses and destination information
2 months Step 3: Initiate a B2B engagement campaign 3 months Step 4: Initiate a B2C promotion campaign 3 months Step 5: Review and Evaluate 2 months
Identify a Project Manager
For the programme to be effective, you will need to identify a Project Manager from within your LVEP team to lead it. They will help to develop and subsequently manage your project plan, communicating effectively with team members, businesses and stakeholders to maximise engagement.
Identify key stakeholders
You cannot deliver this project alone; partnership working is essential.
A key part of the process at this early stage is therefore to identify the stakeholders across the value chain that you need to work with and influence to achieve the programme objectives.
Share your objectives with your key stakeholders, enabling them to support and contribute to your action plan as well as helping to deliver it.
Below are some suggested stakeholders you may wish to engage with to support, develop and promote your programme:
- accommodation providers, attraction, hospitality, tours, adventure / sports related businesses;
- all transport companies serving the region;
- trade / membership organisations;
- chambers of commerce;
- your Local Authority, district and borough councils, some of whom will have their own Access Officer;
- town teams and town centre managers;
- BID managers;
- your national park authority and AONB – (many national parks offer accessible trails, adapted cycle hire and ‘Miles Without Stiles’ barrier-free routes);
- representative user groups e.g., disabled people, older people, families;
- surrounding destination organisations - (given that visitors will not recognise administrative boundaries, you may wish to work with neighbouring destinations to extend the reach of your improvement programme to help ensure that visitors have a consistent experience).
Create a working group
To help you manage the stakeholder relationships and to begin to develop a network, you may want to create a small sub-group of key stakeholders to share information and contribute to the project and ongoing development.
Case Study: Visit Windsor accessibility sub- group
At Visit Windsor, an accessibility sub-grouphas been formed to further their accessible tourism work, encouraging more local businesses to improve their provision for visitors and residents with accessibility requirements. The group is mainly made up of their major business stakeholders who are working hard to improve the experience of disabled visitors, improving the diversity and inclusion in their workforce and actively engaging with the Disability Confident scheme.
The group membership comprises:
- 75% local businesses
- 10% local residents
- 15% Visit Windsor/Local Authority staff.
The vision of the group is “To build a world-class destination for every visitor” with a focus on:
- Employment – bridging the divide.
- Staff training – being more welcoming.
- Marketing & promotion – encouraging visitors to stay longer, do more and spend more money.
- Information – helping visitors make informed choices.
They are learning from each other and are keen to share their knowledge and experience with the wider business community.
