Cash boost for disabled access review website

Euan’s Guide, which was founded by wheelchair user Euan MacDonald and his sister Kiki in 2013, received the grant through the VisitScotland Growth Fund to help create new downloadable e-guides for Dundee and Fife.

The website has also been given a further £5,000 by Historic Environment Scotland to help produce a guide highlighting the ‘unexpectedly good access’ to some of the country’s most striking historic attractions.

The guides will feature accessible visitor attractions, accommodation and restaurants as well as contain information on accessible transport. According to latest figures, tourism parties in which at least one member was identified as disabled contributed approximately £1.3 billion to Scotland’s economy.

Euan, who has Motor Neurone Disease, was at the announcement of the award at Verdant Works in Dundee, along with Jim Clarkson, VisitScotland’s regional partnerships director for Dundee, and Paul Ralph, the website’s access and inclusion director.

Run by Dundee Heritage Trust, Verdant Works is a former textile mill which is now a five-star visitor attraction and is currently home to the Great Tapestry of Scotland Part II.

Euan’s Guide will use targeted social media campaigns to promote its new guides to disabled people, their families and their friends within day-trip distance as well as in the North-East of England.

And as part of Scotland’s Year of Young People 2018, they will enlist the help of young disabled people to share their knowledge of the accessible destinations featured.

Euan MacDonald, co-founder of Euan’s Guide, said: “We hope that these new guides will give local and visiting disabled people, their families and friends great enjoyment as they discover Scotland as an accessible destination. We are thrilled to have received this award and are looking forward to showcasing the best that Scotland has to offer in accessible tourism.”