I have worked in tourism for 25 years – but I began my career working to improve equality for disabled people
I have been the Chief Executive of ALVA (the Association of Leading Visitor Attractions) for the last 11 years.
I first entered the tourism sector in 1997, working for VisitBritain to manage their relations with the government. After that I worked for the Royal Household, before taking up my current position with ALVA.
But all of my work prior to joining the tourism sector was in the area of disability rights and anti-discrimination, as a lobbyist and advocate for disability organisations. I worked for Sense (previously the National Deaf, Blind and Rubella Association) and chaired a consortium of disability organisations – including Sense, Scope, the RNIB and the RNID – supporting the work that the Labour and Liberal Democrat parties (who were then in opposition) were doing to introduce legislation banning discrimination on the basis of disability. This work eventually resulted in the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA).
After Sense, I went to work for the National AIDS Trust, working on behalf of people with AIDS and HIV to develop anti-discrimination legislation and improve access to services, before joining VisitBritain.
My role at ALVA is to represent the UK’s leading visitor attractions
ALVA has 75 members, comprising the largest museums, galleries and heritage sites around the UK. Some of our members operate multiple sites – like the National Trust, English Heritage, Historic Royal Palaces and the Royal Collection – but we also have individual museums and galleries.
ALVA is principally an advocacy organisation and my role is to represent all these attractions to government, the media and the business community. As part of this I sit on the government’s Tourism Industry Council. For the last couple of years the focus has been on the impact of the Covid pandemic, but now our attention has turned to the effect that the cost of living crisis is having on the visitor economy - and the kind of support the industry needs from government to weather the storm.
Apart from my representative role, I also bring members together to share insights, data, case studies and best practice. We have a number of forums, where the heads of areas such as security, HR, marketing, visitor experience, fundraising and membership get together. We hold an event al least every fortnight, somewhere across the UK.
Being a “leading” attraction isn’t just about visitor numbers
The primary qualification for membership of ALVA is that you welcome over 1 million visitors a year to your site or sites. The practical reason for this is that attractions who host that number of visitors will experience the same issues – in areas like procurement and security – compared to attractions who host significantly fewer visitors.
But we make exception for attractions whose capacity will only allow fewer visitors, but who are of national or international historic or cultural significance (such as the SS Great Britain and Bletchley Park).
The key issues facing visitor attractions are recovery, the cost of living and net zero…
It’s important to remember that all visitor attractions and tourism businesses are still somewhere on a spectrum of recovery from Covid. Some are doing very well and are back up to 2019 visitor numbers (or even higher), but some are not doing so well. Audiences for theatres and classical music venues, for example, are typically still 30% down compared to 2019.
International recovery has been quite good – particularly due to the fall in the value of the pound, which makes the UK more affordable – but visitor numbers from around the world are still 23 – 24% down compared to 2019 and we think it will not be until 2024/25 that overseas visitor numbers recover to their 2019 level.
The picture is not consistent across markets. For example, US visitor numbers are only 5% down on 2019, while visitor numbers from China are 99% down (because travel outside China is not allowed). In a normal year the Chinese market is our second most valuable, so this is a really significant absence.
Of course, as we emerge from Covid we are facing a cost of living crisis. This means that everyone is having to make tactical decisions about what they spend on leisure, so visitor attractions have to make sure that they are as inclusive, accessible and affordable to as many people as possible.
Finally, the government’s commitment to net zero means that we have to recognise our responsibility to the environment. Visitor attractions are having to look at ways to reduce their own carbon emissions, but also help their visitors to reduce theirs.
….and visitor attractions are more important now than ever
When people started to go out again after the Covid restrictions began to ease, visitor attractions were one of the first places they went to – to spend really important time with really important people in really important places.
The last couple of years have really highlighted the value and contribution made by visitor attractions – whether parks, gardens or zoos - and the responsibility on attractions to be as genuinely welcoming as possible to all members of our community is all the more heightened by that.
In my experience, accessibility is significantly better than it was, but it is still not as great as it should be
I’ve always believed that the accessibility of visitor attractions is really about ensuring that experiences can be enjoyed by everybody, on their own terms, rather than focusing on disability and what people can and cannot do.
ALVA members are making great strides in making their buildings and facilities - and websites - as accessible to as many people as possible. But beyond this, many are also doing really interesting and creative programming to improve their accessibility to particular groups. For example, times and places are being reserved for people on the autistic spectrum, to help them to enjoy their experience in what can often be an overwhelming environment. We are also increasingly seeing programming for people with dementia, using collections and artefacts as triggers or enablers to help people remember their own experiences and tell their own stories.
Members are also looking to be as affordable as they can be (and it is important to remember that people with impairments are disproportionately highly represented in people with lower incomes). A number of members have introduced particular tickets or access for those who are less well off – for example, Kew Gardens has issued 26,000 £1 tickets for people receiving Universal Credit, while the London Transport Museum has issued 18,000 £1 tickets.
Accessibility is not just about the buildings and the facilities – it’s also about being affordable to all parts of our community.
Accessibility can best be improved by involving those who experience it
All ALVA members comply with the requirements of the Equality Act, but they see this not as an aspiration but as something to go way beyond. Our members want to make sure that access is as comprehensive as possible.
I believe strongly that if you want to get something right you should talk to the people who experience it at first hand. That’s why many of our members have access working groups to ensure that the perspectives of disabled people - and their carers, supporters and families - are locked into the visitor experience at every level.
And it’s not just about physical accessibility – it’s about language, narrative and tone of voice too. We want to ensure that programming actually represents people with impairments. For example, a new exhibition is opening shortly at the People’s History Museum in Manchester, which I chair, which addresses the discrimination faced by disabled people and its impact on their rights. The exhibition is called “Nothing about us without us” and it about providing opportunities for disabled people themselves to be their own best advocates.
Increasingly, technology is helping us to reach out. Some of our properties are physically inaccessible, but through the web we can take some of the visitor experience into people’s homes and onto their phones. It’s a brilliant way of engaging with people who might not be able to visit.
It is just as easy to provide great service to customers with access needs as other customers – and just as difficult
It’s important to remember that, by getting it right for one group of people, we will probably get it right for a whole other group of people too. For example, when we concentrate on how easy or difficult access is for a wheelchair user we can forget that it will be just as easy (or difficult) for a parent with a buggy.
Again, if your approach to programming is one of inclusivity and accessibility - and explicit invitation - then everybody in the community will benefit from that, whoever they are and whatever their societal experience.
Accessibility and inclusivity remain as important to me as ever
They say that if you want to understand a person’s values you should look at what they were doing when they were 21.
When I was 21 I was already working to support people with access needs. I was involved in areas from developing anti-discrimination legislation to ensuring that disabled people are able to play as full and active a part in society as possible – from getting jobs through to making polling stations accessible.
That is where my values came from and where they remain.
