Tourism accessibility falls short

ONLY one in five Australian tourism operators are adequately prepared to cater to the accessible travel segment, a new Tourism Tribe report reveals.

Among the criticisms noted in the study of 2,000 tourism businesses around the country include close to 80% of operators neglecting to include disabilityrelated information on their websites, this despite one in five Australians living with a disability.

“To have only [20%] of tourism businesses assessed include information relevant for people with disabilities was quite disappointing, particularly in light of the Queensland Government’s announcement that next year will be the ‘ Year of Accessible Tourism’,” Tourism Tribe Chief Executive Officer Liz Ward said.

Testifying to the economic benefits of displaying basic accessibility information on websites was Jester Hill Wines founder Ann Bourke, who said the simple changes had already resulted in a spike in sales.

“We’ve had a number of new customers visit our winery as a direct result of having this information on the website, and all mentioned that it was great to be able to check accessibility information before visiting without having to make extra phone calls,” she said.

Meanwhile the same report also noted that only 15.5% of tourism operators are including customer testimonials on their websites, more than 70% are not including destination hashtags when posting on social media, 85% don’t use a live chat functionality on their sites, while close to three quarters of businesses have failed to have their bios set up correctly on social media profiles.

On a positive note, 91.8% now have a mobile-friendly or responsive website.