We are pleased to be working with accessibility experts, AccessAble, to create Access Guides for venue-based tourism and hospitality businesses across the county.
AccessAble’s Access Guides have been used by over 3 million people in the last 12 months. The Guides are based on a surveyors assessment and are a factual, objective resource that simply describes your venue. They do not ‘rate’ a venue or provide a user perspective.
This information would act as the starting point for all disabled people and carers looking to visit new places and reacquaint themselves with previous places whilst supporting businesses to recover as quickly as possible. The Access Guides enable those businesses to share their offer to a much wider audience.
Each participating venue will receive
- A survey from an AccessAble surveyor, assessing up to 1,000 items of information within the venue.
- Creation of an Access Guide to the individual venue, reflecting how a disabled person can make the best use of the environment.
- Production of an internal Guidance report to support an understanding of how and where to make improvements.
- Window sticker with a specific QR code to highlight involvement in the programme and enable a visitor to immediately download the Access Guide.
- Access to an E-Learning programme ‘Disability Essentials’ – a 45minute course identified as ‘best in class’ to support customer-facing staff.
As part of an AccessAble programme, your Access Guide will be alongside more than 70,000 other ‘live’ guides that are currently being used by 100,000 different people each week.
Your Access Guide can also be integrated into your own website, via a simple link button.
All Access Guides also feature on the mobile app ‘AccessAble’ available through iOS and Android.
How much does it cost?
Thanks to the Interreg EXPERIENCE programme, venues in Kent can have an access guide and guidance document created for free. This is based on a set allocation so sign up today to ensure you don't miss out. Once the allocation has been used up, venues in Kent will be required to fund this activity themselves through the Accessible Kent programme with prices based on the size of your venue, starting from £120 + VAT.
Please note that Visit Kent will cover the cost of the initial access guide and guidance document. It is recommended that you book a review in years two and three so your guide can be updated following any changes you've made to your venue following the guidance. Businesses must cover the cost of these reviews themselves. Costs for the reviews are based on the size of your venue and start at £46 + VAT.
Why Create an Access Guide for you Venue?
They provide factual information
Access Guides are based on a surveyors assessment and are a factual, objective resource that simply states what can be expected on arrival, they are not a “grading” or “star rating”. These documents provide disabled people with the information they need to make a decision on what they could or could not do at your venue.
Free marketing for your business
AccessAble’s Access Guides have been used by over three million people in the last 12 months. The guide will sit on the AccessAble website and app, and they can also be integrated across your own websites as well as your Visit Kent website listing. As such, they will enable you to reach a much wider audience, putting you in front of disabled people and carers looking to visit new places and reacquaint themselves with others.
They are a marketing tool for your business
Upon receipt of your guide, you will also receive an individual building assessment that will set out potential, prioritised improvements from an independent and objective perspective referencing the latest national best practice – don’t worry, they won’t all be expensive or large changes! It could be as simple as moving signage to make it clearer, or adding an extra handrail. You can also book reviews and updates for your guide in years two and three.
Sign Up Today!
- Sign up for your Access Guide by completing the form here
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Please complete the form for each venue that you manage. If you manage multiple venues that you would like to be assessed then please complete the form again for each venue.
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Once you have submitted this form, a member of the Visit Kent team will be in touch to confirm your booking.
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Following this, your details will be passed on to AccessAble who will get in touch with you to arrange a suitable day for the initial assessment to take place.
If you’d like more details on the access guides, then please get in touch.
Virtual Access Guides
Virtual Access Guides provide 360-degree immersive tours showing routes and features along the way, together with access into and around a venue. Overlaid on this is accessibility information, which can be toggled on and off as required to fulfill a general Virtual Tour requirement too.
Partners to date have found these to be really valuable for high footfall areas or routes or those where people’s anxiety could be particularly high.
| Virtual Access Guide | £1,000 - 3,000 per venue |
Please note that Visit Kent are unable to cover the cost of the Virtual Access Guides.
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