Access Guides, Reviews and Wayfinding: What Each One Does for a Venue

Accessibility information for venues has become a small industry, and the names blur together. This is a plain comparison of the main tools a UK venue manager is likely to meet, what each does, roughly what it costs, and where a wayfinding page like Signposted fits. The short version: the guides and review sites describe a venue before the visit; a wayfinding page gets the visitor to the right door on the day. They are complements, not rivals.

AccessAble

AccessAble surveys venues and publishes Detailed Access Guides with measured facts: door widths, toilet layouts, parking counts, photos of each area. After VisitEngland's own Accessibility Guides tool closed on 30 June 2024, AccessAble became VisitEngland's and VisitScotland's chosen provider. Guided (video) assessments start from about £165 plus VAT and on-site assessments from £340 plus VAT, with renewals from £25 a year, according to VisitBritain business advice. What you get is trusted, consistent, surveyed information on AccessAble's site and app. What you do not get is a map of your site, routes, live status or your own branding.

Euan's Guide

Euan's Guide is the disabled access review site, founded in 2013, with an app and the annual Access Survey that gives the sector most of its statistics (in 2025, 42% of respondents avoid a venue with no access information). Venues can claim their listing free and add an access statement. It is reviews rather than guidance, and reviews are only as good as the last visitor's experience.

Sociability and WelcoMe

Sociability is a crowdsourced app of accessible places with photos of entrances, toilets and tables, strongest for pubs, cafés and shops and a younger audience. WelcoMe lets a visitor tell a venue what help they will need before arriving, so staff are ready; Liverpool ONE and other centres use it. Both are about the welcome, not the route.

Waymap and the indoor mapping platforms

Waymap gives audio turn-by-turn navigation indoors without GPS or beacons and is live across Bullring and Grand Central in Birmingham, with routes that avoid stairs. It is a downloaded app and a survey-grade installation priced for an estate of 1.5 million square feet. The indoor mapping platforms sold to airports and hospitals are similar in scale. Excellent for the biggest sites; out of reach for a school or a museum.

Google and Apple Maps

Most visitors start on Google. A business profile can flag a wheelchair-accessible entrance, parking, toilet and seating, and those four ticks show in search results. Keep them accurate. They cannot say which of your three entrances, or how to get from the bays to it.

A wayfinding page

A Signposted page is the venue's own page, in its own brand, that puts the surveyed facts on a map or site plan, draws the step-free route to every door, reads directions aloud, shows what is open, busy or closed right now, and is built to WCAG 2.2 AA. It is priced per site from £5,000 and kept current by the venue's own team. It does not replace an AccessAble survey; it displays it. The accessible wayfinding page shows the accessibility features and the access statement guide shows how the two documents feed each other.

What to do, in order

1. Fix the Google Business Profile attributes today.
2. Write or update the access statement using the checklist.
3. Commission a Detailed Access Guide if your sector or quality scheme expects one.
4. Claim the Euan's Guide listing and invite reviews.
5. Put it all on a wayfinding page visitors can use on the day, and link it from letters, tickets and signs.

Questions people ask

What happened to the VisitEngland Accessibility Guides?

The AccessibilityGuides.org tool closed on 30 June 2024 after an extension from March. VisitEngland and VisitScotland appointed AccessAble as the replacement provider after a 2023 tender; old Word versions should not be uploaded to a website.

Can I use my AccessAble guide and a Signposted page together?

Yes, and that is the sensible pairing: the survey supplies the measured facts, the Signposted page puts them on a map with routes, photos, live status and read-aloud directions, and links back to the guide.

Do visitors still use Google Maps for this?

Most start there. Keep the wheelchair-accessible entrance, parking, toilet and seating attributes on your Google Business Profile accurate, then send people on to the fuller page.