We want to create a more accessible and inclusive destination for our visitors by supporting our businesses to understand how they can improve accessibility for their customers, as well as developing our own marketing activities to ensure that the information we provide is more inclusive and actively promotes our accessible destination.
With the help of the Interreg EXPERIENCE project, we have partnered with AccessAble – the UK’s largest provider of access information – to create a landmark programme of inclusive visitor support. This programme will be the first of its kind delivered across the UK and will provide practical support to our businesses as well as direct engagement with disabled visitors.
This programme will deliver against three key facts of accessibility:
The aim of this type of approach is to ensure that disabled people and carers can participate and contribute as a part of society rather than feel apart from society.
Below are some details on how you and your organisation can get involved, free training materials and resources.
The Accessibility Market
In the UK, there are over 14 million disabled people and 4.5 million carers according to the UK Government’s 2019/20 Family Resource Survey. The Department of Work and Pensions estimates the influential spending power of disabled people to be more than £274 billion per year.
In 2019, Visit Britain released some statistics demonstrating the commercial value in improving accessibility:
Access Guides
AccessAble’s Access Guides have been used by over 3 million people in the last 12 months, tourism and hospitality businesses across Kent who have their own venue will have the opportunity to work with AccessAble to create a unique Access Guide for their venue. The Access Guides are based on a surveyor’s assessment and are a factual, objective resource that simply states what can be expected on arrival. Each business will have an initial access guide created, followed by two review sessions in the following two years, only if you choose to. This is a great chance for businesses around Kent to have a bespoke access guide created for their business through the partnership of Visit Kent and AccessAble.
| CLICK HERE TO GET INVOLVED |
Free E-Learning
‘Disability Essentials’ is a course for everyone and is designed to ensure people are confident and comfortable in their engagement with disabled people. It uniquely combines legal expertise and the lived experience of disabled people. It has been written by AccessAble’s founder, who is both a practicing employment & discrimination barrister and a disabled person.
With impactful content and embedded videos, the course will make a memorable impression on your team. The course will take around 40 minutes to complete, also making it a time and cost-efficient way of providing your staff with the knowledge and confidence they need.
This course is free for you to share with your staff and volunteers
| CLICK HERE TO TAKE THE COURSE |
