VisitEngland and Action on Hearing Loss Launch New Guide for Tourism Businesses

National tourist board VisitEngland has joined forces with UK charity Action on Hearing Loss to launch Listen Up! - a new guide for tourism businesses.  Designed to help businesses become more accessible for customers with hearing loss, the free resource is available online at www.visitengland.org/access.

More than 10 million people in the UK (one-sixth of the population) have some form of hearing loss*, and Listen Up! is packed with information, advice and examples of best practice for providing these customers with a warm welcome and an excellent visitor experience. It also highlights key issues for business owners when accommodating deaf or hard of hearing visitors, including:

• Safety – How to put adequate evacuation procedures in place to alert guests with hearing loss in case of an emergency.
• Communication – Advice for staff when speaking to someone with hearing loss, and information on disability awareness and sign language training courses.
• Facilities – Information on equipment that can assist guests with hearing loss (available at www.actiononhearingloss.org.uk/visitengland), such as hearing loops and text phones, as well as advice on completing an Access Statement -  a written description of a venue’s facilities and services, to inform people with access needs.

This new guide adds to a wealth of free tools and resources VisitEngland has developed with a range of partners to help attractions, accommodation operators and other tourism business across England offer the best possible experience to disabled visitors.

Download the Listen Up! guide from the right-hand panel in PDF format.

Videos highlighting experiences of deaf guests

The national tourist board has also released a series of short videos highlighting the experiences of deaf guests when staying in hotels in England. The videos are designed to alert business owners to a range of issues affecting deaf guests, from wake up calls to ordering room service. They can be found on the VisitEnglandBiz YouTube channel: www.youtube.com/VisitEnglandBiz .

As well as partnering with VisitEngland to produce Listen Up!, Action on Hearing Loss also recently assisted the national tourist board in offering hearing loop testing to quality assured attractions as an extra part of their annual VAQAS (Visitor Attraction Quality Assurance Scheme) assessment.

Ross Calladine, VisitEngland’s Head of Business Support, said:

“Visitors who have a health condition or disability – and their companions - spend over £2billion a year in England**, so it is vital that we integrate the needs of visitors with physical and sensory access requirements into our everyday service provision.  Listen Up! is designed to help tourism businesses become more deaf aware, and attract even more of these loyal and valuable customers, and Action on Hearing Loss is the ideal partner for this project.”

Chief Executive of Action on Hearing Loss, Paul Breckell, says: “People with hearing loss are a significant force in the economy, travelling both for business and pleasure. We are delighted to be working with Visit England to publish the Listen Up! guide.  It will help tourism businesses improve the accessibility of their services for people who are deaf or hard of hearing, invest in hearing loss support and generate more income.”

In addition to being available free of charge at www.visitengland.org/access, copies of Listen Up! will be included free in the Summer issue of Quality Edge (July/August) – VisitEngland’s bi-annual magazine for its 16,000 quality scheme participants, containing the latest industry news, case studies, articles, advice on marketing and best practice and much more.

Footnotes

* Hearing Matters, Action on Hearing Loss (2011)

** In 2009, 11% of all domestic trips included someone with a health condition or impairment – a total of 11.28 million trips worth £1.9 billion (Great Britain Tourism Survey, 2009). In 2010, 1.8% of all international visits to England were by someone with a health condition or impairment – a total of 576 thousand trips worth £341 million (International Passenger Survey, 2010.)

VisitEngland is an Associate Member of ENAT