The foyer is flawless, with polished concrete, designer lighting, and espresso humming in the background. On paper, the venue is “fully accessible”. Yet for one delegate navigating the space with a mobility aid, the reality unfolds very differently: a narrow aisle here, an untrained staff member there, an overstimulating hall that turns a professional conference into an endurance test.
It is this quiet contradiction between promise and practice that sits at the heart of a new international report that should make every event organiser in Australia pause.
Fresh research released this week by The Business of Events and ICC Wales, supported by the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) for Events, found that 93 per cent of disabled delegates still encounter barriers when attending events. The study was launched at IBTM World on 19 November, but its implications reach far beyond any single exhibition floor.
The findings are confronting not because they reveal some obscure technical failing, but because they expose how persistently ordinary the barriers remain. Layouts that do not work. Toilets that cannot be used. Staff who want to help but do not know how. Sensory environments that overwhelm. Information that never quite arrives when it is most needed.
From 1,000 delegates surveyed, almost one in three identified as having a visible or non-visible disability. Of that group, nearly every respondent reported facing at least one obstacle to participating fully. The most common included inaccessible layouts (28 per cent), overstimulating environments (27 per cent), untrained staff (25 per cent) and lack of accessible toilets (24 per cent). In an industry that prides itself on precision planning, those are not marginal oversights; they are systemic failures.
What makes the data more uncomfortable is how confidently venues rate themselves. Of the more than 100 venues surveyed, 82 per cent reported offering step-free access, 91 per cent said they provide accessible toilets, and three-quarters claimed staff had received disability awareness training. Yet more than four in ten venues acknowledged charging for accessibility adjustments, such as ramped stages or gender-neutral facilities, an approach delegates overwhelmingly reject as discriminatory.
Put simply, what venues believe they are delivering and what delegates are experiencing are not the same thing.
The research was led with the support of accessibility consultant Dr Shani Dhanda, who examined twelve distinct themes, including physical access, sensory needs, communication, training, technology, and regulation. Her conclusion is blunt: accessibility remains too often treated as a contingency rather than a foundation.
Dr Shani Dhanda
“This isn’t just a report, it’s a rallying cry,” Dr Dhanda said. “Accessibility is still too often seen as optional, when in reality it benefits everyone.”
Her warning is not rhetorical. The report also maps clear pathways towards compliance with the European Accessibility Act (EAA), which came into force in June 2025. For Australian venues operating internationally or hoping to attract global business events, this is no longer just a social expectation. It is rapidly becoming a regulatory one.
At ICC Wales, managing director Craig Bingham says the issue must be designed out before it ever appears.
“Inclusive design should be a baseline expectation, not a bolt-on or a budget decision,” he said. “Our focus is on removing barriers before they arise, not reacting once someone is already excluded.”
That philosophy will resonate with many Australian operators. Business events now represent a cornerstone of the national visitor economy, pumping billions into hotels, airlines, venues and hospitality suppliers. Verdicts on accessibility increasingly shape not just delegate experience, but destination reputation.
Yet the report suggests that cost is still quietly shaping decisions in boardrooms where it should not. Nearly half of the venues surveyed admitted charging for adjustments that many delegates regard as fundamental rights. It is this friction between commercial calculation and fundamental inclusion that now threatens to become the industry’s defining ethical test.
According to Mike Fletcher, Director of News & Content at The Business of Events, transparency was a deliberate choice.
“The data shows a real disconnect between venue intent and delegate experience. By sharing these findings openly, we hope to push the sector beyond good intentions towards meaningful change.”
For Australia, the lesson is sobering. Local operators often point to compliance with building codes and disability standards as proof of readiness. But this report demonstrates that compliance alone does not guarantee participation. Accessibility is not simply about gradients, door widths or signage. It is about how people move, process, communicate and recover within environments designed predominantly for the non-disabled majority.
And those environments are multiplying. Australia’s convention pipeline is expanding. New precincts are rising in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth. The business events race is intensifying. Yet as the sector grows, the consequences of getting accessibility wrong will only scale with it.
What this report ultimately exposes is not malicious neglect, but something more insidious: institutional complacency. Venues believe they are doing “enough”. Delegates quietly report that they are not.
In the gap between those two positions lies both commercial risk and moral failure.
The full report, Access All Areas: Closing the Accessibility Gap in Events, including ten industry recommendations, is available at:
https://thebusinessofevents.co.uk/gateway-pages/access-all-areas/.
The question now is not whether the industry knows the problem exists; it does. The question is whether it is finally prepared to design, fund and operate as if disabled delegates are not exceptions, but clients.
By Prae Lee – (c) 2025
Read Time: 5 minutes.
About the Writer
You can tell a lot about a person by how they handle a busy Bangkok morning. Prae Lee doesn’t rush; she glides through it. There’s a calm certainty about her, the sort that comes from knowing where you come from and where you’re going.
Educated at Chulalongkorn University, she took her business degree with the quiet pride of someone who believes in doing things correctly. Her travels for further study in Singapore and Australia didn’t change her; they polished what was already there: curiosity, discipline, and grace.
She returned to her family business in Bangkok, breathing a little modern life into it. She handled social media with the intuition of someone who listens and sells with the gentle persistence the Thais do so well.
Prae doesn’t make a fuss, but everything she touches shines brighter.
Now part of the Global Travel Media family, Prae brings authenticity and quiet confidence to her writing, drawing from a life steeped in culture, travel, and connection.
