Demystifying accessibility: embracing accessible tourism to empower destinations

welcome to the future of Tourism podcast I'm David peacock stop owning your own content young leaders are stepping up bring everyone to the table and imagine their wild and [Music] new as we set our sights on things like regenerative tourism sustainability accessibility and a virtuous visitor economy the big question is how do we generate the engagement and alliances in our communities that are needed for Success Ross caladine is the head of business support at visit England and their in-house accessibility specialist he and his team have done a magnificent job of reverse engineering accessibility wins so that stakeholders in the tourism Community can see real and immediate benefit they also built and perfected a deliver libery and distribution model with a Keen Eye on driving uptake by providing measurable ongoing value directly to stakeholders good morning Ross how are you where are you what's it like hi David I'm great thank you for having me I'm uh in Oxfordshire in England it's a little rainy today uh we've had some lovely bright mornings and very crisp frosts but uh you know a little bit of wintry rain today all right today is the 7th of December it's a Thursday but you've already had a big week on the 5th you launched um the um accessible tourism plan uh toolkit you want to talk about that for a second yes sure this has been a really big project that I've been uh excited to launch this week alongside International Day of persons with disabilities so visit England as the national tourism body for England really wants to equip the tourism sector in England with the resources and the guide and the uh case studies to really help them create more accessible and inclusive tourism experiences for everyone so we set about in January working with a fantastic supplier called mimer on authoring this holistic toolkit pulling together lots of uh guides that we produce with the disability Charities over many years and actually bringing it really up to date plugging those gaps filling it with case studies practical tips and and that's what we were launching on Tuesday this week so R when you started this I mean you you you talked to me about this before you you didn't come from an accessibility field you came from you know you came into government to work on this project but along the way you've done some remarkable things so let's let's first tell me about leading England's inclusive tourism Action Group and then we'll talk about some of the things you're doing tactically to make to drive the uptick of this so what is England's tour inclusive tourism Action Group sure so eag is a group that I set up in 2015 and it was really on the back of recognizing that if we're going to move the dial as a as a nation and a set of destinations to to be more accessible and inclusive and compete with other destinations around the world we need to bring Partners together and work towards that one shared goal I saw that there were some really great players out there in the private sector public sector third sector a mix of you know expert Consultants people with lived experience and I built these connections and I just thought that we could be stronger together so eag is about bringing people together building those conversations those networks um and driving towards that shared ambition which currently uh is for England and the whole of the UK to become the most accessible tourism destination in Europe so eag's membership ship or or constituency who's part of it Usual Suspects unusual suspects yeah yeah so we've got some of the key players in tourism who are leading um strong programs in the access and inclusion space from Merlin entertainments running running some of Britain's biggest attractions The National Trust English Heritage and then we supplement that with some great public sector um uh bodies and organizations third sector so we have a charity called tourism for all for example we have experts in the accessibility space such as the business disability Forum they do a lot in advising employment of disabled people uh the center for accessible environments you know all about built environment accessibility and some really good independent Consultants that have been working at the Grassroots with the businesses that you know dayto day they're at the coldface advising businesses on accessibility hearing about their the um their real misconceptions their barriers their struggles so it's a real good mix of people and we get together quarterly um and it's a lot of sharing but it's also we do some strategizing as as well well speaking of strategy so the you know with with EEG looking over the strategy piece with you running it from your desk at the at the government one of the remarkable things people always say to me about when they see you speak is how you demystify and simplify accessibility and turn it into a something that can be attained and B something that actually drives business so talk to me a little bit about what you've learned along the way about motivating and and inspiring Partners now I I know you work on multiple levels you got stakeholder Partners like accommodations and attractions but you've also got destination organizations and you're really trying to help them future proof so if you could focus in on that just a sec for us yeah absolutely absolutely so engagement is the hardest part you know I've always said that we or anyone can produce quality Guidance the trick is getting engagement in that guidance and there is a Fear Factor you know a lot of our industry is made up of micro businesses and ourselves at the national level and our destinations we have to learn how to best engage those fearful businesses and those businesses have a lot of misconception and we have to keep banging the drum to say yes the international symbol of disability is a wheelchair but it's estimated that it's only around 7% of disabled people that use a wheelchair so if you're a listed bed and breakfast with both your bedrooms on the first floor you can still make a difference to people's um experiences even if they um don't use a wheelchair think about sensory impairment think about C cognitive dementia um and and the the the breadth of disability and impairment so I mentioned that we've launched this toolkit for businesses what we're also about to launch is um a toolkit specifically for our new breed of dmos in England and they're to they're to be called local visitor economy Partnerships so visit England is um leading a program to accredit elvet so they are a form of destination management organization and visit England will be supporting those elets very closely on a number of key uh policy areas and one of those is accessibility so the toolkit specifically uh for for our elps will be on how to how to develop and Lead an accessible and inclusive destination and I very much see Partnerships and collaboration being part of that we need to connect our industry the people leading our destinations and our businesses more with people with lived experience of disability because whilst we have a as long as we have a disconnect there we're not going to be able to reach the end goal you know there's a common refrain from disabled people which chimes with me you know nothing about us without us and sometimes we can find ourselves getting wrapped up in work and projects where we're trying to deliver initiatives to make a difference for disabled people but we've kind of forgotten to truly co-produce and put them at the heart of what we're doing so yeah a lot of uh the starting point for destinations is to form those connections there's lots of local groups within destinations that are just you know crying out for their voices to be heard they've got so much lived experience to offer and I see great examples of destinations marrying up and forming fruitful lasting partnership ship with local disability groups access forums for example that's where real change starts from well I wanted I want to talk about the way you present this because you you have a very amicable way of presenting this and anyone who I've talked to who's watched to present and all the stuff I've watched you do you really demystify the issue you start by humanizing the idea of accessibility and I think that I think that figure you hit me with that hit me right between the eyes was 16% of the world's population will self-identify as having some form of challenge when it comes to Ability well that's a unbelievably massive number in tourism because you look at it and say that's bigger than the profit margin on most tourism businesses right 16 16% globally actually in England it's 24% so you know the business case is quite striking and you know businesses in our industry we have to struggle with major impacts um you know very frequently you know whether it's um ash clouds whether it's we've had in the past here a foot and mouth disease uh which really decimated rural tourism whether it's terrorism incidents whether it's covid you know there are there are really strong pressures which mean that we need to make our industry as resilient as possible and accessibility can absolutely help Drive Better Business resilience it also drives the reputation it's it's Mass a massive driver of a strong reputation for a destination and who doesn't want to have a great you know a great reputation and finally Revenue you know the other R the three Rs um 14.6 billion pounds is spent each year in England by disabled Travelers and their um traveling companions so this is a niche market and when I go and speak to businesses I say don't be afraid of recognizing the commercial value because absolutely you should be doing this because it's the right thing to do you also do have legal obligations but let's also be proud to recognize that most uh most of us are in uh running businesses for commercial gain a and um the purple pound as we call it now is very very large good and and the purple pound go ahead expand on that for us because I come across that term a lot in your writing yeah I mean there's lots of um thoughts as to to where the color purple came from um from the fact that Tanny gray Thompson uh a well decorated um par Olympian her favorite color was purple and she used to wear a lot of purple um but it's really been adopted as the color of disabled people and there is a great initiative called Purple Tuesday I was going to ask you about that yeah yeah we we we're a founding partner visit England's a found found in uh supporter of purple Tuesday it's a global movement that is trying to shine a light on the importance of the disabled customer experience and it cumulates in a set of pledges by businesses I think they had over 7,000 pledges made by businesses and destinations to improve accessibility this year and then there is a day the first Tuesday in November normally where there's a big you know Fanfare I think they they were um trending number one on X uh this year which they were proud of and lighting up you know as many venues in purple as possible just to kind of spread that awareness excellent excellent okay we've talked about your approach and your approach is very much if I can sum it up again demystify what accessibility is create tangible wins for stakeholders so that they engage um and then go out and as best you can popularize that and build an alliance around it now that sounds straightforward but here's the drill in tourism especially at the destination level we are hungry for engagement but I think we've got a bit of an approach avoidance conflict we really sometimes don't know where to start you've spent the last three years neck deep in engagement what have you learned that you need to talk dmos about because Ross I'm going to be really blunt here I think the next five years the most single pressing issue we have as destination organization is we either create meaningful credible tangible valuable engagement in our communities or someone else will come in and supplant us to do it because there's no way we can continue to have five of everything and six committees for that so taking the accessibility experience in engagement what can we learn from it about engaging stakeholders about building the networks we need to address things like sustainability equity and accessibility for me it has to be about driving towards mainstreaming the topic you know so long as you try and treat this separately um it's always going to feel like it's an additional piece of work but just like for the the other parts of sustainability if you can try and embed it in everything you know in your culture in your DNA and have people at the top of your destination or your organization all the way down to the bottom living and breathing the principles around inclusive welcome accessibility it'll just become natural it'll just become part of what you do and like anything in what destinations and businesses are working on it's a journey you know in the guidance that we produce there's no expectation for us to say okay and in year one we expect you to have achieved these actions well no it has to be tailored depending on your resources your business plan what you're working on and I think it's about just getting destinations and businesses to step onto the treadmill and once you're on it and you start delivering actions in this space and seeing the benefits you'll just continue to gradually get through more actions and then you'll look back a year two three years later and say actually we've been building some great work here we we've got some momentum so I think it's about putting the fear to one side not letting perfect get in the way of good because we can all be guilty of that that's something that uh myself and my team have had to really you know come to come to terms with because you want to produce the most perfect set of guidance ever but you know we we we want to move forward and we want to um just nudge things forward you know we don't have to always think that we can achieve Perfection it's not realistic well and complete guidance doesn't work you said it earlier you go into a destination and it you know it's it's the old Mo analogy that you know the minute the minute the the challenge starts every the plan goes to heck in the sense every single accessibility plan I'm sure you've ever made is is customized completely for for the place it's it's you're working with who are the partners where are they at what's their level of development what's their understanding let me talk about elps and covid for a minute two things that may have helped move your file along you were very very busy in Co you didn't shut down at all um did the did the pressures of covid increase the awareness of what you were doing or was it just people's open-mindedness because I I watched your file through Co and for two years you guys were non-stop you probably had your biggest growth as an entity during Co yeah I mean as the national tourism Agency for England and Britain we realized that we had a very important role during covid and it was to try and and and support businesses to survive so it became about survival um topics like accessibility naturally didn't have as much of a focus during covid but we had to really explain that when businesses were reopening and they were changing some of their practices like they were afforded to for example use pavement spaces more out you know outside well that could create and was creating some barriers to disabled people you know visually impaired people cluttering up Pavements not being able to to to to get through town so there was a piece that we wanted to weave and we tried to weave in with our partners around the impact of covid um changes on this community but then I think once we've reopened and we're looking to build back stronger that was part of the message here in the UK and I think in other countries as well let's try and build back better and I think covid did did build a level of empathy that has helped move this agenda along you know it's not not sympathy you know no one in in in this movement is looking for sympathy but empathy is very much welcome and should be appreciated and I think Co has helped to move the dial on that I think that's a really important observation I like I like the way you framed that I I believe completely what you're saying I think Co sha a light um on ourselves you know for for a change and we saw our communities and we saw what they did well what they didn't do well I mean you can take it to various parts of tourism mean Venice and Barcelona saw themselves without over crowding traffic England saw itself as what's the future of Tourism so I think it had a huge impact and I think the other thing that I'm interest in elaps elaps are Regional type tourism offices aren't they essentially yeah so we're moving from a situation in England where we've had anywhere between 150 to 200 destination management organizations and they really vary in their size their remit their resources and as you appreciate with such a fragmented landscape it's very difficult for uh visit England and other partners and government to be able to make a difference um when applied to so many um small and overlapping Partners so there was a review done by independently done by um visit Britain visit England's chair Nick deis yep uh he he did a very big review paper and said we need to have some rationalization in the destination landscape and that's where the ad event of of elps has come about so they're they're a subset um but it has really been about forming more Partnerships getting more of these dmos to work together and become lvps collectively so it is a rationalization of the landscape and now we have a golden opportunity to work with them on accessibility so the the toolkit is going to give them the framework and what we want to do is drive greater consistency in how destinations tackle accessibility so to get our lvps behind key initiatives that we're pushing that can collectively if every elvp is working on those initiatives it will move the dial for England it's interesting the the elvp model and or the regional tourism model it's been tried in so many places over the world and it's been iteratively made better and better when we started doing it in Canada our early lesson came from watching what they' done in in in British Columbia they had I think 11 Regional tourism offices elvp type things the interesting thing about them is when they came in and you got to remember this is you know early 2000s they were still highly focused on marketing 10 years later when they built them in Ontario we had the real opportunity to say you know the one thing we're not missing in tourism is enough marketing dollar going around in fact 80% of the dollar going around is marketing dollar so what can we do differently and I think lvps or Regional tourism offices had a much more open mind in a broader perview to talk about things like accessibility sustainability Community engagements where dmos I mean you know they're 100y old product and let's face it the majority of their business was around sales advertising and marketing right so I'm excited with these Regional Offices and we see it here we see it around the world we see it going on in France and Italy as well Regional Offices I think they bring a fresh open-minded perspective that uncorks one really important piece of information tourism is a massive economic developer in most destinations that engage it and it really needs to come in to the 21st century in terms of creating the networks it needs to sustain doing Partnerships that allow it to continue so it's not single Source funding so I'm excited about the elvs I think it helps especially programs like um accessibility equity and diversity and inclusion yeah absolutely agree with you uh so elaps are grounded organizations that are far from just marketing organizations so for an elvet to be accredited by us they have to be doing the whole destination development and marketing piece because that's absolutely key you know we need bodies on the ground working very closely with all of the players in the in the tourism supply chain um and destination um management organizations elvet they they are the best the best organizations to be to be doing that so just going back to the subject of the day I think accessible and inclusive tourism ultimately when you boil it down is about welcome and that's exactly what our industry is all about we're all about the welcome the experience and if you put that at the heart of the accessibility piece it's about listening to every guest every visitor and saying how can I make this experience this stay this visit better for you so it needs a very individual approach because impairment health condition accessibility it is very individual so it's not about making any assumptions here it it all goes back to having that dialogue um and just providing good customer service and a good welcome well talk about that for a second because you told me a really fascinating story a couple weeks ago um we don't see the world through the eyes of someone who's challenged with with which which whichever challenges they have and and we make assumptions about them we make assumptions about beds and bathrooms and bars and toilets but you told me a really interesting story about a five-star experience and it was it was a I think it was a friend of yours no names mentioned who talked to you about dealing with one of his guests at at an absolute festar uh project tell us that story because I think it really sort of makes the scales drop away from your eyes when it comes to this thing yes absolutely so this was a hotel operator um who was EXT sending a stay to one of his close colleagues and this is a colleague from industry who's worked in hotels for many many years and became disabled uh qu quite later on in his life so he came as a wheelchair user to stay at his friend and colleague's hotel on checkout Hotel manager said you know how was your stay was it you know was it a great stay and he gave the honest feedback and said you know what it wasn't a five-star stay for me unfortunately and he gave some very specific feedback back that just hit a note it it it created what I call a Eureka moment in that hotel manager's mind and we need these Eureka moments to be happening daily so his Eureka moment was well I want everyone every guest to have a five-star experience with me clearly for some people with access requirements we're not quite getting it right and they're not getting the five star experience so it's started dialogue it started conversation and then um the the the disabl individual started to work with the hotel and give them lots of insight lots of feedback worked on their um product worked on their information because the information is so key every business needs to give quality detailed information about their accessibility and destinations need to shine a light on products let's let's come back let's talk about how they give that information because you made a really good point on that but in this in this case this is a five-star hotel with a complete focus on on luxuriated service and and the GM when he was talking really asked the question expecting to get the usual sort of yeah it's a great Hotel what an experience and it would you know thanks to the fellow who had the hood spot to say no actually it's not if you have if you're physically or or otherwise challenged this is not a festar hotel absolutely and I think it helped that there was respect between the two individuals the feedback was given in a very constructive way um you know and they have a fantastic Spa facility but actually if there's no hoisted provision into the pool well that fantastic part of the the festar hotel is totally off off limits to to to this person so yeah we want to see more of those eure moments don't we okay so you talked about also amenities and you have a really key point on this in your presentation it comes up all the time don't ask me about my disability and then work around it um I'm a human being tell me what you've got and I'll figure it out absolutely how does that work so we've done so much research and listening to disabled Travelers on this very topic of information and you know it doesn't help to prescribe you know sometimes we do that naturally because we think it's it's useful so you know or you know our um our attraction isn't suitable for you know don't don't prescribe it it health conditions impact everyone differently dayto day people with the same condition can have very different accessibility requirements so the premise here is that businesses destinations are describing a venue or a destination's accessibility with photographs with detail with measurements where appropriate and giving empowering people this is what it's all about information empowers people but don't bury it on your website so I remember a survey preco that we did 63% of service accommodation businesses in England that had some features and Facilities on accessibility were not promoting those features so they were hiding hiding those features away for many different reasons maybe a fear that those features weren't quite good enough and if they did sing about them then they were setting themselves up to be shut down but we have to hit that fear head on and we have to say to businesses you have some good features on accessibility but they're only going to be useful if you communicate them so the the information piece is is is very important and and always a key part of our guidance and my presentations when I speak to businesses and destinations yeah and it's it's a really welcome piece in your presentation all right we're we're coming up on 27 minutes um we're talking about a world in which destination organizations the next few years have to really embed themselves in their Community they have to become uh essentially known catalytic and effective now there's many of them that already are but they're all struggling for ways to deliver value to stakeholders and those stakeholders are are Myriad there there's the original you know sort of Usual Suspects hotels restaurants attractions accommodations but there's many more especially in the accessibility field but as you look at your work over the past sort of four or five years and you you remember you're talking to probably about 900 destinations worldwide right now they're all struggling with the same thing how do we build the networks we need to achieve the kind of objectives we're talking about in the next 10 years so just in rounding out this discussion any of what you've learned that can help destination organizations be more relevant be more focused and be more essential in their communities last word to you absolutely I think destinations can learn a lot from each other there are a lot of destination organizations that are getting to grips with this not just in England and the UK but throughout Europe and throughout the world so put on your listening ears you know seek out those um peers and talk to them about what they've done most people in this space are happy to share you know let's learn from others let's start and dial up the conversation that we're having with disabled people and put it in our DNA you know let's make sure this is right up there in our destination development plans put it Central and you'll start to see the benefits come through in your destination and then you'll want to run with this and you'll be infused and you'll be impassioned and you'll want to really you know keep delivering over the years and build on that early success well in an example of that I'm going to throw a link into some of your presentations because I think they really do humanize this issue and make it make it easy and accessible pun intended um so listen thanks for that it's always great to talk to you um uh hopefully we can we can spend some FaceTime over the next year talking about this stuff but thanks again for being a guest thanks for having me David

2024-01-09 22:46

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