Travel

“Lack of Information.” That was the unanimous answer to the question, “What is the greatest barrier to travel when planning a trip?”–by a panel of disability travel experts and travel agents at the first annual TravelAbility Summit in San Francisco in 2019.

Last month we announced “Advancing Accessibility One Landing Page at a Time” – a new initiative that will provide visitors as well as locals–15% of whom, statistically, are living with a disability–with an easy way to find the information they need.

To begin the initiative our team conducted a research survey of 122 Canadian and US destination websites and found that only 40 of them included an accessible landing page. 

What we learned from researching 122 DMO Websites for Accessibility

Our team visited 12 Canadian province and 50 state websites and 60 CVB websites and found the following:

• Hard to find: While many destinations featured landing pages prominently for other niches (i.e. LGBTQ, families, etc), accessible landing pages were much harder to find. In most cases, accessible travel information was buried three to four clicks down, taking an average of three minutes to find. It’s safe to assume that no one with a disability will endure that type of user experience.
• Inconsistent placement. For those that did include an Accessible landing page, there was no consistent pattern as to where it should be featured.  Some categories we found them in were: “Things to Do,” “Plan Your Trip” “Transportation and maps” “Order your visitor guide”  or under “Accessibility” along the footer.
• Uncertainty as to what information should be provided. From the quantity of information and the content they were featuring, our sense was that there is confusion on the part of website content directors as to what should be included. The best sites featured the following:
  • Direct links to the landing page containing accessible services and experiences, including hotels, attractions, museums and tour providers
  • Accessible airport transportation + vehicle rentals, with information about the accessibility of public transportation
  • Accessible resources: i.e. travel agents, sign language, mobility equipment rentals
  • Testimonials from visitors (or locals) with a variety of disabilities
  • Link to a “How can we make this page better” user feedback form. (see this one from Visit North Carolina that goes directly to the website content department).
• Technical compliance. We ran all the state websites through the WAVE web access evaluation tool and found that only 12 states/provinces could be deemed fully  compliant. This may be due to the ambiguities in the way WCAG rules for businesses that do not directly sell to consumers online are interpreted. It does make sense to make the content about accessibility available to those to whom it is targeted.

Of the 50 state and 12 Canadian province websites, we found accessible landing pages (and links) for the following:

Of the 60 cities that we reviewed, including all major gateway cities and others that attended TravelAbility Summit, we were able to identify 23 landing pages.

About one-third of the CVB and DMO websites we reviewed had an accessible landing page. This is a missed opportunity for attracting new visitors with disabilities, who are looking for destinations that extend an open hand by providing clear information about accessibility and the possibilities that do exist.

Will your organization work to fill the information gap? Contact us at info@travelabilitysummit.com if you need assistance.