Accessibility Playbook

PART 1

FUNDING STRUCTURE & MECHANISM

ACCESSIBILITY FOCUS & OUTCOMES

DESTINATION ROLE

Alabama Mountain Lakes Tourist Association (AMLA) MICRO-GRANT DISTRIBUTION MODEL

AMLA’s Accessibility Advancement Grant Program distributed $500 micro-grants to tourism bureaus across 16 counties in North Alabama, ensuring full regional participation. The 2025 program allocated approximately $8,500 in direct funding.

Funds supported targeted improvements such as braille

AMLA acts as a regional funding distributor and multiplier, structuring micro-grants, setting accessibility priorities, and catalyzing additional local investment while enabling county tourism bureaus to implement aligned accessibility improvements across the region.

materials, ADA upgrades, sensory- friendly spaces, mobility equipment, and accessible event infrastructure. While individual grants are small, the model drives distributed impact, leveraging municipal, nonprofit, and in-kind contributions. The program generated an estimated $50,000– $75,000+ in total project value.

Visit Mesa DESTINATION-LED NONPROFIT ACCESSIBILITY FOUNDATION MODEL

The Mesa For All Foundation is a nonprofit aligned with Visit Mesa that blends philanthropic funding, destination strategy, and private- sector participation to support accessibility programs.

Funding supports autism certification, accessibility audits (e.g., Wheel the World partnerships), workforce development (Camp Level Up), and business inclusion initiatives. The model builds structured pathways for businesses to improve accessibility while strengthening destination-wide inclusion performance.

Visit Mesa acts as a strategic anchor and ecosystem integrator. The destination shapes program priorities, connects businesses to certification and funding pathways, and integrates accessibility outcomes into destination branding, marketing, and stakeholder engagement systems.

Québec PAET (Kéroul + Ministry of Tourism) CERTIFICATION-LINKED ACCESSIBILITY FUNDING GATE MODEL

Québec’s Ministry of Tourism funds accessibility improvements through PAET (Programme d’accessibilité des établissements touristiques), administered with Kéroul, the province’s accessibility authority. Funding supports tourism business upgrades in infrastructure and service delivery.

Accessibility is structurally embedded into eligibility and prioritization through technical assessments and classification systems. Businesses with higher accessibility performance gain improved positioning in tourism promotion systems, linking funding access, certification outcomes, and market visibility.

Destination organizations and tourism partners operate within a structured ecosystem where accessibility certification influences funding access and destination visibility. Their role is amplification and alignment: integrating certified businesses into marketing systems and reinforcing accessibility as a competitive tourism asset.