Accessibility Statement

This is an accessibility statement from DestinationCore, the official destination organisation for Melchester. The website is built and maintained by DestinationCore.

Our commitment

Visit Melchester helps people plan a trip to Melchester. You can find things to do, events, places to eat and stay, trails and itineraries, venues for meetings and events, and travel booking. We want everyone to be able to use it, including people who use screen readers, keyboard-only navigation, screen magnifiers, voice control or other assistive technology.

Accessibility is also part of what we offer. The site includes:

• Accessibility and sustainability filters. Pick the accessibility criteria that matter to you, for example step-free access or accessible toilets. Listings across the site are then filtered to match, and your choices are remembered on later visits. A banner at the top of each page reminds you when filters are switched on.
• The Accessibility Finder. Search for places by venue type and accessibility feature. You can also limit results to places with a detailed AccessAble access guide.
• Accessibility information pages. There is a page for each accessibility feature. Each one lists the businesses, events, experiences, trails and itineraries that offer it.
• Trip planner accessibility question. The trip planner asks about your accessibility needs, and your answers shape the suggestions you get.
• An "Accessibility Mode" toggle in the header on larger screens. It raises the contrast of selected content.
  

Conformance status

The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) set out requirements for designers and developers to improve accessibility for people with disabilities. There are three levels of conformance: Level A, Level AA and Level AAA. Visit Melchester is partially conformant with WCAG 2.2 Level AA. This means some parts of the content do not yet fully meet the standard.

Across the site

• The page language is set to English (UK), so screen readers pronounce content correctly.
• Every page, including error pages, has a unique, descriptive page title.
• The layout is responsive and works on mobile, tablet and desktop. You can zoom in up to 400% on mobile without it being blocked.
• Pages use standard landmarks (header, navigation, main content and footer), so assistive technology users can move between sections.
• Images come with alternative text written in our content management system. Purely decorative images are hidden from screen readers.
• The sitemap page lists every section of the site, with clear headings and lists.
  

Navigation and search

• Icon-only controls such as search and the homepage logo have text labels for screen readers.
• On desktop, you can open navigation dropdowns with the keyboard (Enter or Space) and close them with Escape.
• Menus close when keyboard focus moves away from them.
• When you open site search, the cursor moves straight to the search box. Escape closes it.
  

Listings and filters

• On listing pages, the category and sort-by dropdowns have clear labels.
• Page number buttons have clear "previous" and "next" labels.
• Filter checkboxes and options in the venue search, food and drink finder, and accessibility filters are all labelled.
• The AccessAble switch in the Accessibility Finder tells screen readers whether it is on or off.
  

Forms and accounts

• Contact and enquiry form fields have visible labels that are linked to their inputs. Required fields are marked in code, and error messages are linked to the field they relate to.
• Login, registration and password reset forms support password managers and browser autofill for email addresses and passwords.
  

Carousels, video and chat

• Carousel arrows are labelled "Previous slide" and "Next slide". Carousels that move on their own pause when you hover over them or move keyboard focus into them.
• Embedded videos do not play automatically. Video play buttons say which video they play.
• The chat assistant and the "Personalise Your Visit" window are announced as dialogs, and their controls are labelled. The chat assistant announces when it is loading a reply.
  

Third-party content

Some features come from third-party services that we do not fully control. Their accessibility may vary:

• Interactive maps (Mapbox)
• Embedded video (YouTube, Vimeo and our video player)
• The AI trip planner and chat assistant (Mindtrip and Agent Studio)
• Travel booking and ticket checkout (the DestinationCore booking engine and Bandwango)
• Social media photo galleries (Snapsea)
• Surveys (SurveySparrow and SurveyHero)
• Search (Algolia)
• Cookie consent

If you cannot use one of these, contact us and we will give you the information another way.

Technical specifications

The site relies on these technologies to work with your browser and any assistive technology you use: HTML, WAI-ARIA, CSS and JavaScript. Some features, such as the menus, filters, search, maps, trip planner and chat assistant, need JavaScript to be turned on.

How we assessed this website

We assessed the site ourselves by reviewing the code and templates of the whole site. This covered:

• the header, navigation, mobile menu and footer
• site search and listing pages
• the venue search and food and drink finder
• the trip planner and the accessibility features
• maps, carousels, galleries and video
• forms, user accounts and pop-up windows
  

Feedback and contact

We welcome your feedback. If you have trouble using any part of Visit Melchester, or you need information in a different format, please contact us.

Please tell us the page address and what the problem was.

Enforcement

If you are not happy with our response, please contact us on the provided information above.

Date

This statement was prepared on 28 September 2026. It was last reviewed on 28 September 2026.