Quick Guide to Accessibility for Tourism Operators
Introduction
Accessible tourism is about ensuring that everyone has the opportunity to participate in and enjoy the many beautiful experiences that the industry has to offer. By promoting accessibility, we can create a more inclusive, profitable and diverse industry that benefits individuals and businesses alike.
For people with disabilities, it means that they can fully participate in and enjoy the same activities as everyone else. This can help to promote a sense of inclusivity and equal opportunity and can also provide valuable opportunities for individuals with disabilities to travel and experience new places.
For tourism operators, making tourism experiences accessible is beneficial and, in certain respects, necessary by law. By providing accommodations for individuals with disabilities, businesses in the tourism industry can profit by opening up their doors to a new market segment of potential customers and ensuring they are meeting their legislative requirements.
Laws for Accessibility in Australia
There are many laws and regulations for accessibility in Australia, including state and territory-specific legislation, that are designed to promote equal access and inclusion for people with a disability. In this accessibility guide, we are introducing two most commonly used laws, The Disability Discrimination Act 1992 and The Disability (Access to Premises – Buildings) Standards 2010.
The Disability Discrimination Act 1992 (DDA) prohibits discrimination against individuals with disabilities and requires businesses to make reasonable accommodations to ensure that they have equal access to goods and services. This means that tourism businesses that are not accessible to people with disabilities may be in violation of the DDA and could face legal consequences as a result.
The Disability (Access to Premises – Buildings) Standards 2010 (Premises Standards) are a set of national standards that apply to the design, construction, and fit-out of new buildings and the alteration of existing buildings to ensure that they are accessible to people with disabilities. These standards apply to a wide range of buildings, including hotels, motels, hostels, and other accommodation facilities.
Complying with the law is an essential first step in ensuring accessibility and inclusion for people with disabilities. Still, it is important to remember that the legal standards represent only the minimum requirements that must be met.
Venue Accessibility
Physical Accessibility
Physical accessibility refers to the ability of individuals with disabilities to access, navigate, and use physical spaces and objects.
Improve the physical accessibility of your tourism business by conducting a thorough assessment of your facilities. This might involve looking at things like the layout of your space, the width of doorways and corridors, modifying restrooms to make them wheelchair accessible and the availability of ramps and other accommodations for individuals who use wheelchairs or other assistive devices. By identifying potential barriers to accessibility, you can create a plan for making necessary modifications to your facilities. Ultimately, this leads to a more inclusive tourism experience.
Here is a checklist of physical accessibility:
Accessible parking for people with disabilities on-site or close-by
Accessible pathways from car parking to the site and all facilities
Accessible parking for scooter users
Accessible public transport close-by
Clear path of travel from outdoor to indoor areas
Step-free access as an alternative to any steps or stairs on the site
Wide self-opening or easy to open doors
Ramp or lift access to all levels
Clearly signed passenger stops and vehicles
Wheelchairs for loan
Consistent and even lighting along pathways
Direct, signposted access to a designated accessible toilet
Informational Accessibility
By providing accessible information and materials, businesses and organisations in the tourism industry can help to ensure that all of their customers are able to access and understand the information they need to fully enjoy their experiences and ensure their safety for a more inclusive tourism experience.
This might involve things like the format of your materials, the font size and contrast of your text, and the availability of audio descriptions or other alternative formats. Some key modifications that may be necessary to improve informational accessible tourism include providing materials in multiple formats, such as braille, large print, or audio formats. It may also be necessary to provide audio descriptions of visual materials, such as photographs or videos, for blind and low-vision visitors or closed captions for audio content for people who are deaf or hard of hearing.
Every experience is different, and due to the nature of the experience you offer, it may not be able to cater to everyone. It is important to remember that listing the services or facilities you don't offer on your website is as important as listing the ones you do offer.
Here is a checklist of informational accessibility:
A Mobility Map of the site indicating accessible parking, toilets, paths, attractions etc.
Information regarding public transport access to the site
Information regarding drop-off points close to entries
Accessible guided tours
Information about services for people with disabilities
Audio information and Braille buttons in any lifts
Large print raised tactile, Braille and audio signage
An ‘assistance animal welcome’ sticker at entries (e.g. guide hearing dog)
Information (e.g. menues) in large print and Braille
Audio descriptions of performances and displays
Captioning on any film or video screens
Raised tactile and Braille markings on any lift buttons
Employee Assistance
Training staff to interact with people with disabilities is important for ensuring that everyone receives equal treatment and access to services.
The benefits are simple, Providing excellent service to customers with disabilities can enhance their travel experience and increase their satisfaction, resulting in repeat business and positive word-of-mouth recommendations.
Here is a checklist for venue employee assistance:
Friendly, helpful staff, trained in access awareness
Staff available to read information to patrons if required
Staff who speak clearly and look at the patrons when talking
Staffs has pen and paper for exchanging information
Staff available to assist in self-service areas
Accessible Marketing
Ensuring that your venue provides accessible information and materials is important, but it's equally crucial to make sure that your website and social media platforms are also accessible because travel research is the beginning of a complete experience.
To significantly improve the accessibility of your website and social media, here are some aspects to consider:
Alternative text and image optimisation
Alternative text, or alt text, is a great way to make images and web pages more accessible for people who are blind or have low vision. It is easy to implement, involves a minimal time commitment and makes it easier for users to engage with your content in a meaningful way. It can also increase your search ranking in Google Images.
Learn how to create a “good” Alternative text with WebAim.
Video content
As with images, video content isn’t automatically optimised for blind and low-vision users. To make videos more accessible, add a voiceover (audio description) describing the actions taking place in the video. Adding closed captions is essential to make videos more accessible for users who are deaf or hard of hearing.
Contrast
Using high-contrast colours between backgrounds and text in your branding and web content is another easy way to make your content accessible and maximise engagement. Different contrast ratios are appropriate depending on whether you’re displaying large text, small text or icons.
It’s also important to remember that graphs should use highly contrasted colours, shades and textures to distinguish between different parts of the graph.
Try using a contrast calculator to see how accessible your branding colours are. WebAim contrast checker provides a ‘pass’ or ‘fail’ check on your chosen colours and provides examples of each element.
Website Structure
A well-structured page is easier to navigate for all users but is especially important for screen-reader accessibility. Being mindful about creating descriptive, meaningful links will also optimise your content to maximise engagement from your blind and low-vision audience.
W3C Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) offers great tips and in-depth instructions on how to structure an accessible website.
Hashtag
To maximise your hashtag reach and effectiveness, make sure that you use Camel Case, which means you capitalise the first letter of each word within the hashtag. That makes sure it will be read as intended rather than words blending together.
For example, instead of #accessibletourism, use #AccessibleTourism.
The Usage of Emoji
Emojis interrupt your caption text. If you plan to use emojis, they should be used at the end of the sentence and only used only when necessary. They should not be used to replace words or be unnecessarily repeated.
For example, if you used the hand over mouth emoji three times at the end of your sentence, it would read “Face with Open Eyes and Hand Over Mouth emoji, Face with Open Eyes and Hand Over Mouth emoji, Face with Open Eyes and Hand Over Mouth emoji”. Not an enjoyable experience, “Sad Face emoji”.
For more information
We’ve included our top tips for easy ways to maximise the accessibility of your web content for people who are blind or have low vision and optimise your user experience and SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) in the process.
This list isn’t exhaustive - there are plenty of other things to consider when creating accessible web content! Check out the WCAG 2.1 Guidelines for a more detailed list of features to make your website and content accessible.
Accessibility Resources
Understanding the Accessible Tourism Market - TravAbility
Initially, Travability was set up as a vehicle to publish accessible travel information via its website travability. Today, Travability is part of a worldwide group whose mission is to create equality in accessibility in the hospitality and travel industries.
Making your business more accessible and inclusive - The Queensland Government
This guide has been developed primarily to help tourism operators:
• increase knowledge about the market for accessible tourism;
• develop strategies to improve the accessibility of their operation to appeal to a wider range of visitors of all abilities and ages; and
• understand legal obligations in relation to inclusive tourism and accessible tourism.
Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 - W3C
WCAG 2.0 is developed through the W3C process in cooperation with individuals and organisations around the world, with the goal of providing a shared standard for Web content accessibility that meets the needs of individuals, organisations, and governments internationally.
