| Blue Badge Style
Media Announcement |
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Venues to Boost Revenue with Blue Badge Style Virtual Gallery
Style guide for people with disabilities adds virtual reality to its Gallery
London, 11 April 2016, People with disabilities can now view the stylish facilities at a hotel, bar or restaurant in virtual reality via a Blue Badge Style Gallery. Blue Badge Style is the only company re-defining disability with style. The company’s Virtual Gallery will improve online information for people with disabilities, their friends & families. It will also increase occupancy rates and give venues a competitive edge in the growing hospitality market of affluent, less physically able individuals, estimated by the Department of Work & Pensions at £212bn a year in the UK.
Blue Badge Style has created a prototype Virtual Gallery with Avenue Imperial. Blue Badge Style info has been added to the entrance and reception of Avenue Imperial’s virtual images of The Auersperg Palace in Vienna.
Founder of Blue Badge Style, Fiona Jarvis, explains “Venues can attract new customers by adding a Blue Badge Style Gallery to their websites. People with disabilities want to anticipate any issues before they arrive, but then they often become loyal customers. It’s about offering people an informed choice so they can get on with having a good time!”.
Blue Badge Style Gallery takes a customer with disabilities on a stylish, photographic journey through a venue, whether on a VR headset, via the Blue Badge Style app or on the venue’s website. It highlights areas that online galleries often miss, such as:
- Type of flooring – wood and stone are great for a wheelchair, but might pose a problem for a walking stick user. Occasional carpets also need to be pointed out.
- Odd steps – An inch step might be managed with help, six inches is hard work!
- Table legs – good leg positioning helps wheelchair users get close to the table.
- Hard surfaces – can maximise background noise, which can be a challenge for those with hearing difficulties.
- Ramps – it’s always good to know how steep the ramp is before you arrive.
- Rails – one each side of the loo is vital, and at the right height.
Fiona Jarvis, explains “It’s hard for people without a disability to spot these things. So the process of creating a Virtual Gallery also informs staff about potential issues and adds a valuable resource for enquiries. It’s an opportunity to tap into a new market with the minimum of fuss for the venue and the guest”.
Blue Badge Style Virtual Gallery is created by a person with disabilities and the virtual reality option gives them the best view possible of a venue and its facilities. More than just a basic ‘wheelchair access’ notice, Blue Badge Style Gallery is a neat button on the venues’ website, which clicks through to stylish images with discreet pins and notes on various access points. There’s no dull written statement, or grainy images of bathroom rails.
12 million people, or one in five, in the UK have a disability. Research by the Department of Work & Pensions reveals that households which include a person with disabilities have a combined income of £212bn after housing costs. The British Hospitality Association reveals how venues could tap into this, as the average length of a hotel stay by someone with a disability is four nights. According to The Extra Costs Commission report in June last year, Six in ten businesses surveyed said that they would benefit from better information about disabled people’s consumer habits and preferences. Perhaps because the same research shows that three quarters (75%) of disabled people and their families have left a shop or business because of poor customer service and a lack of disability awareness.
Notes to Editors
About Blue Badge Style Gallery
Blue Badge Style Gallery comes in three versions; Quick Gallery, Full Gallery and now Virtual Gallery too. For more information, see the Blue Badge Style website www.bluebadgstyle.com
Blue Badge Style Gallery arrives as a social media-ready tool, matching the style of the venue and can be posted to a website, Facebook or Pinterest and appear as a button alongside other social media icons. Once clicked, the Blue Badge Style Gallery takes the customer visually through the access points before their visit. It includes overlay photos and a narrative of facilities and is placed on an easy to find area of a website.
In December 2014 Blue Badge Style won the coveted Special Category Prize: Urban Environment at the European Investment Bank Institute’s Social Innovation Tournament.
Blue Badge Style has designed a Blue Badge Style Public Gallery for the City of London luxury hotel South Place Hotel and its Michelin-starred seafood restaurant Angler. The chic, boutique hotel is a first from restaurateurs D&D London, with Conran-designed interiors.
http://pad.bluebadgestyle.com/south-place-hotel/
A prototype of Blue Badge Style Virtual Gallery is on the Avenue Imperial site. Click on the arrow in the doorway to continue into the reception.
http://property.avenueimperial.com.s3.amazonaws.com/Palais-Auersperg/Tour/tour-demo.html
About Blue Badge Style www.bluebadgestyle.com @bluebadgestyle
Blue Badge Style is the UK’s first and only app and website guide to help the less-able lead an exciting social life, because style and disability are not mutually exclusive. Established by Fiona Jarvis in 2007, it aims to give its community a positive, stylish and elegant experience, wherever they go or whatever they do. Fiona first realised she might have MS when she kept falling off her high-heels! That was over 20 years ago and today she uses a wheel chair to glide through life.
About the Stylish Less-Able Market
The Family Resources Survey (FRS) 2010/11 states that 19% of the UK population suffer from some form of long-term disability (12m people). There are also an estimated 6 million carers. This does not include temporarily disabled people, their families, friends or unregistered carers.
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/family-resources-survey-201011
In the UK, spend by disabled households is now £212bn per annum according to the government’s Department of Work & Pensions. http://www.govopps.co.uk/212bn-potential-business-in-purple-pound/
Business Disability Forum Infographic
http://www.businessdisabilityforum.org.uk/about-us/news/disabled-customers-in-the-united-kingdom-infographic/http://www.businessdisabilityforum.org.uk/about-us/news/disabled-customers-in-the-united-kingdom-infographic/
More information on the Extra Costs Commission:
http://www.scope.org.uk/get-involved/campaigns/extra-costs-commission
British Hospitality Association:
For more information about Blue Badge Style, please contact PR Savvy:
Kate Warwick / kate.warwick@prsavvy.co.uk / 078 1069 7282 / @prsavvy