New Chair for South West Accessibility Group

Over 11 million people in the UK have a disability of some kind and in 2009 a quarter of all trips taken by the UK's disabled travellers were to the South West.  Malcolm Bell, CEO of Visit Cornwall has been appointed Chair of the South West Visitor Economy Accessibility Stakeholder group and is heading up efforts to raise accessibility and awareness  in the region.

The accessibility market is a massive one, currently worth over £2bn per year to tourism businesses in England.  And these customers are loyal, on average they stay longer than other guests (3.6 nights as apposed to 3) and spend more (£173 as apposed to £168).  These guests also prefer to visit rural and coastal locations.  In 2009 a quarter of all trips taken by disabled travellers were to the South West.  That's 23% of this market, the next most visited region was the South East with 18% of the market share.

The South West Visitor Economy Accessibility Stakeholder group has been meeting and working on raising awareness of accessibility in tourism in the region for over 12 months now.  Achievements to date have included:

• switching on the data capture functionality to allow data stewards to capture information about accessible accommodation and attractions
• developing the Access New Business Course which was run in Bath in 2010 and is now available as a free, online course for everyone in the SW
• achieving the 2012 Inspired By mark for the Accessing New Business Project project. 

This month Malcolm Bell, CEO of VisitCornwall, was appointed chair of the group.  The appointment was applauded by the group as a great leap forward for accessibility in tourism for the region.  Having the region's Destination Management Organisations in the driving seat for this agenda is seen as very positive move.

Date added: Monday 14th February 2011
Latest updated: Thursday 8th March 2012