Creating a visitor guide highlighting accessible accommodation, attractions and events is a challenging task. The accessible Gold Coast guide has all the essential elements for visitors looking for accessible places and experiences. It’s a good example of what an access guide should contain.
The guide is comprehensive and covers just about everything anyone would want to do as a visitor. However, this does make for a large document of 158 pages. Queensland made 2023 the “Year of Accessible Tourism” and this guide is a great legacy.
The guide has an accommodation map covering northern and central Gold Coast, and the southern Gold Coast and hinterland. Each hotel and resort listed provides detailed information about accessible rooms. The information covers reception, the room, the bathroom, bedding, kitchen, balcony, furniture and fittings, and public areas including the pool.
There is also a map listing the key attractions for the Gold Coast. Each of the attractions listed has an overview and an accompanying “access statement” provided by the operator. These statements promote their service as well as provide an overview of what is inclusive or accessible. It’s not clear which experiences are specifically for people with disability or for everyone – inclusive. Also, the way the information is presented varies from operator to operator.
Information about transport modes and their accessibility is also provided.
What it doesn’t cover
It’s clear from the access statements that the focus is on mobility disabilities and wheelchair users. Invisible disabilities are missing from the statements. Some of the language needs vetting for outdated terms such as “special needs”. Choice of font and layout for the statements would also benefit from a review.
The font for the main document uses a narrow typeface which isn’t the easiest to read. It’s one thing to have an access statement, but the statement itself needs to be accessible. More plain language would also make the document more accessible to more people.
This is the first iteration of the guide, and as such it shows how to go about at providing detailed access information for visitors. Making the guide itself more accessible would be a useful improvement.
Destination Gold Coast is a separate website and provides similar information with a link to the accessible Gold Coast guide. This website looks like it was designed by the same graphic designer with the same narrow typeface, and headings in both upper case and script style text. The Handbook for Accessible Graphic Design addresses these issues.