Guide has become the TripAdvisor for disabled access

Disabled people and those closest to them are being urged to take part in the UK’s longest running access survey.

Euan’s Guide is carried out online between October and December each year and enables anyone with a vested interest in disabled access to have their say.

Questions include how confident people are in visiting new places, what action they take if a venue has not shared its disabled access information, and what they do after visiting somewhere with good disabled access.

Euan MacDonald, co-founder of Euan’s Guide said: “The Access Survey is an important source of information documenting the problems that disabled people face when visiting somewhere new. We ask for people to take part each year to show how accessibility and people’s behaviours and attitudes toward it are changing.”

Now in its sixth year, the survey shows an increasing trend toward disabled people visiting places which have been recommended by someone with similar access requirements or where they can see pictures and read reviews before visiting.

This is likely connected to the fact that confidence remains low when visiting new places and experiences of getting inaccurate disabled access information from businesses still remain rife.

People are also asked to rate the accessibility of different kinds of places, including restaurants, shops, hotels and hospitals. Museums and galleries have consistently come out on top with the majority rating then as having typically good or excellent accessibility.

The 2018 survey revealed that accessibility in pubs and bars was deemed to be the lowest, meaning that more people consider pubs and bars to have poor access than they do historic places built for a different century.