There are two kinds of accessibility on a destination website, and most teams only work on one.

The first is the accessibility of the site itself: whether a person using a screen reader, a keyboard or magnification can use it. The second is accessibility information: whether a person in a wheelchair, a parent with a pram or a traveller with a sensory sensitivity can find out, before they drive two hours in the summer heat, whether the cellar door has a step at the entrance and whether the falls lookout has a ramp.

The first is a compliance job with a clear standard. The second is a content job, and in 2026 it became a data job too.

The size of the market

Tourism Research Australia counted 70.5 million trips by travellers with accessible needs in 2024, 22% of all trips in Australia. Those travellers spent $29.2 billion, 17% of all spending. And they lean regional: 58% of their nights and day trips were in regional areas, against 44% for other travellers (Tourism Research Australia⁠ (opens in a new tab)).

For a regional tourism organisation, that last figure is the one to put in the board paper. Travellers with accessible needs are more than a fifth of your market, and more likely to be in your region than in the capital.

What ATDW now carries

In June, ATDW and The Accessible Group announced that ATDW will recognise the Accessible Tourism Accreditation Program (ATAP) on participating Operators’ profiles, in phases, starting with recognition of the accreditation and links from those profiles to verified accessibility profiles (The Accessible Group, June 2026⁠ (opens in a new tab)). ATAP has four levels: Assisted Walking, Independent Wheelchair, Assisted Wheelchair and Sensory Assisted.

ATDW’s Nadia Feeney called it distributing “reliable, AI ready accessibility information”. The difference between a verified level and an Operator’s own description matters. “Accessible” in a description can mean anything from a ramp at the front door to a ground-floor room with a step into the bathroom. A named, verified level means something specific, and a traveller, a booking platform or an AI assistant can rely on it.

ATDW profiles already carry accessibility attributes that Operators fill in themselves. The ATAP link adds verification on top.

What to show on your site

Render the attributes. Check a handful of your Products against their ATDW profiles. If the profile lists accessibility attributes and your Product page doesn’t show them, your site is hiding the most decision-critical information it has. Show them on the Product page in plain words, near the booking link.

Show verified levels where they exist. When an Operator’s profile carries an ATAP accreditation and a link to its verified profile, show the level and the link. Say what the level means in one line, because “Assisted Wheelchair” is clear to some Visitors and opaque to others.

Let people filter. A Visitor planning around a wheelchair wants to see only the places that work instead of opening twenty Products to find two. Add an accessibility filter to accommodation and attractions, and be honest about how thin it may be at first.

Write the page Operators can’t. The access story of a destination is bigger than its Operators: accessible toilets in the main street, the beach matting laid over soft sand at the surf club, the shade at the bus stop, the all-abilities playground, the gradient of the walk to the lookout, the quiet room at the visitor centre, the market’s quieter first hour before the crowds. One well-researched accessibility page per town is worth more than a paragraph of good intentions on the home page.

Be specific, never absolute. “Wheelchair accessible” is a claim. “Level entry, a ramp to the deck and an accessible toilet; the garden path is gravel” is information. Avoid “fully accessible” anywhere, because it is rarely true and a Visitor who discovers otherwise at the door won’t trust the rest of your site.

Help Operators fill the gaps

Most Operators skip accessibility fields because nobody asked. A regional tourism organisation can change that in a season.

  1. Pull a list of your Operators’ profiles with empty accessibility attributes.
  2. Send each one a short note with an example of a good entry and a link to how ATDW’s fields work. ATDW’s Insights Hub has guides for this.
  3. Point accommodation and attraction Operators to ATAP if verification suits their business.
  4. Thank the ones who do it, publicly, in your industry newsletter.

And the site itself

The accessibility of the website is the foundation for all of this. The Australian Human Rights Commission’s 2025 guidelines say organisations “should conform with WCAG 2.2 at a minimum Level AA” (Australian Human Rights Commission⁠ (opens in a new tab)). If your organisation is part of the Victorian public sector, WCAG 2.2 Level AA has been the minimum since January 2025 (Victorian Government⁠ (opens in a new tab)). Councils and state-funded bodies elsewhere will usually have their own policy pointing the same way.

WCAG 2.2 added criteria that matter on destination sites: targets large enough to tap, focus that stays visible under sticky headers, and no puzzles at login. A map that only works with a mouse, a carousel that won’t stop and a PDF itinerary without tagged headings are the usual failures. Test with a keyboard and a screen reader before you buy another audit.

On Roam

Roam syncs ATDW Products with their accessibility details, alongside descriptions, imagery, opening hours and booking links, and Roam sites are WCAG-aligned builds. That gives your team the data and the foundation; the town accessibility pages are still a job for people who know the town. See how ATDW sync works.