Website Accessibility Statement

Last Updated: April 2026

1. INTRODUCTION

This Accessibility Statement applies to the official Experience Turks and Caicos website at www.visitturksandcaicos.com (the “Website”).

Experience Turks and Caicos is the official Destination Management Organisation of the Turks and Caicos Islands, established as a statutory body. We are committed to ensuring that our Website is accessible to everyone — including visitors with visual, hearing, motor, or cognitive disabilities — and that it can be used effectively with assistive technologies such as screen readers, font magnification tools, voice recognition software, and keyboard-only navigation.

We believe that every person, regardless of ability or the device they use, should be able to access information about the Turks and Caicos Islands online without barriers. This statement sets out our approach to accessibility, the current state of our Website, and how you can contact us if you experience any difficulty.

2. OUR ACCESSIBILITY COMMITMENT

Experience Turks and Caicos is committed to making its Website as inclusive and easy to use as possible. Our goal is to meet the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2 Level AA standard, which is the internationally recognised benchmark for digital accessibility.

We recognise that accessibility is an ongoing process and not a one-time achievement. We are continuously working to improve the accessibility of our Website and to ensure that new and updated content conforms with current guidelines. We welcome feedback from all users to help us identify and address accessibility barriers.

As a statutory body serving both the residents of the Turks and Caicos Islands and an international audience of visitors and travellers, we draw on the following standards and principles:

  • Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2 Level AA – the primary technical standard for our Website;
  • The W3C’s Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) principles of Perceivable, Operable, Understandable, and Robust (POUR);
  • Best practice guidance issued by AbilityNet and the Web Accessibility Initiative; and
  • The constitutional right to equality of treatment and non-discrimination under the Constitution of the Turks and Caicos Islands (2011).

3. WHAT YOU SHOULD BE ABLE TO DO ON OUR WEBSITE

We have designed our Website so that you should be able to:

  • Change text size, colour contrast, and other styling using your browser or device settings without loss of content or functionality;
  • Zoom in up to 400% without text spilling off the screen or content being truncated or overlapping;
  • Navigate the Website using a keyboard only, without the use of a mouse;
  • Navigate the Website using speech recognition software (such as Dragon NaturallySpeaking);
  • Skip to the main content of each page using a skip link, when navigating with a keyboard or screen reader;
  • Listen to the content of most pages using a screen reader, including current versions of JAWS, NVDA, and VoiceOver;
  • Access descriptive alternative text for all meaningful images;
  • Access text transcripts or captions for audio and video content where provided; and
  • View the Website on a range of devices and screen sizes, including mobile phones, tablets, and desktop computers.

We have also worked to ensure that the language used throughout our Website is as clear and straightforward as possible, to assist users with cognitive disabilities or those reading in a second language.

4. HOW ACCESSIBLE THIS WEBSITE IS

4.1 Compliance Status
Our Website is designed to conform to Level AA of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2, an international standard established by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). We are committed to meeting or exceeding this standard across all pages of our Website.

Our Website is routinely tested using automated accessibility tools, including SiteImprove, to identify and address accessibility issues as they arise. We also conduct periodic manual audits and usability testing with assistive technology users.

4.2 Known Accessibility Issues
We are aware that some parts of our Website may not yet be fully accessible. Known issues currently include:

  • Some decorative images may be exposed to screen reader users rather than being correctly marked as decorative;
  • A small number of links may not provide sufficiently descriptive text to convey their purpose or destination to all users;
  • Some embedded social media content (including Instagram feeds) may update automatically in a manner that could be disruptive for some users;
  • Certain video content may not include full audio descriptions for visually impaired users; and
  • Some older PDF documents may not be fully accessible

We are actively working to address these issues as part of our ongoing accessibility improvement programme. We will update this statement as issues are resolved.

5. WEBSITE ACCESSIBILITY FEATURES

5.1 Navigation
Our Website includes the following navigation aids:

  • A “skip to main content” link at the top of each page to allow keyboard and screen reader users to bypass repeated navigation elements;
  • Keyboard-navigable menus and interactive elements, accessible via the Tab key (to move between elements) and the Enter key (to activate a highlighted link or button);
  • Consistent, logical page structure and navigation across the Website; and
  • All navigation menus are marked up as semantic HTML to support assistive technologies.

5.2 Structured, Semantic Markup
Our pages use structured HTML heading tags (H1 through H6) to convey document hierarchy and assist screen reader users in navigating content. Navigation elements are tagged appropriately as HTML landmarks. Lists are coded as proper HTML list elements where applicable.

5.3 Images and Visual Content
All meaningful content images include descriptive ALT text attributes. Decorative images are marked as such to prevent unnecessary information being conveyed to screen reader users. Text is not used within images where it can be avoided, and where it is, the same text is provided in the ALT attribute.

5.4 Colour and Contrast
Our Website is designed to meet the minimum contrast ratio requirements specified in WCAG 2.2 (Level AA) between text and background colours. We do not rely solely on colour to convey meaning or information.

5.5 Forms and Interactive Elements
All form fields on our Website include descriptive labels. Error messages are clearly identified and describe the nature of the error to assist users in correcting their inputs. Interactive elements are accessible via keyboard and are compatible with standard assistive technologies.

5.6 Video and Multimedia
Where video or audio content is published on our Website, we aim to provide captions and/or transcripts. We are continuing to work to ensure that all multimedia content meets the relevant WCAG 2.2 criteria, including audio descriptions for video content where applicable.

6. BROWSER AND DEVICE ACCESSIBILITY

If you are experiencing difficulty reading or navigating our Website, adjusting your browser or device settings may help. The following resources provide guidance on the accessibility features built into the most widely used browsers and platforms:

AbilityNet (www.abilitynet.org.uk) also provides free guidance on making your computer, tablet, or smartphone easier to use if you have a disability.

7. ASSISTIVE SOFTWARE AND TOOLS

The following free tools and services may assist you in viewing and interacting with our Website:

  • Screen Readers: NVDA (www.nvaccess.org) and JAWS are free or widely available screen readers compatible with our Website. VoiceOver is built into Apple devices and TalkBack is built into Android devices.
  • Text Magnification: Most browsers support text zoom via Ctrl + (Windows/Linux) or Cmd + (Mac). Mobile devices include built-in magnification in accessibility settings.
  • High Contrast Mode: Most operating systems and browsers include a high contrast display mode to improve readability.
  • W3C HTML Validator – A free service for checking that web pages conform to published HTML standards: https://validator.w3.org
  • WAVE Web Accessibility Evaluation Tool – A free online tool for evaluating the accessibility of web pages: https://wave.webaim.org

8. STANDARDS COMPLIANCE

Our Website is designed to conform to Level AA of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2, published by the W3C’s Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI). All pages are built using structured, semantic HTML and are designed to be compatible with current assistive technologies.

We reference the following accessibility standards and frameworks:

  • Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2 (https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG22/) – the primary technical standard for web accessibility;
  • W3C Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) (https://www.w3.org/WAI/) – guidance and resources on web accessibility; and
  • ARIA (Accessible Rich Internet Applications) Specification – used to improve the accessibility of dynamic and interactive content.

Although the Turks and Caicos Islands does not currently have specific statutory requirements governing digital accessibility for public sector websites equivalent to the UK’s Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) Accessibility Regulations 2018, Experience Turks and Caicos voluntarily adopts those regulations as a benchmark of best practice, given our role as a statutory body and the international reach of our Website.

9. WHAT WE ARE DOING TO IMPROVE ACCESSIBILITY

We are committed to ongoing improvement of our Website’s accessibility. Our current and planned activities include:

  • Regular automated testing using SiteImprove to detect and resolve accessibility issues in new and updated content;
  • Periodic manual audits conducted against the WCAG 2.2 Level AA criteria;
  • Staff training on digital accessibility best practice for those responsible for creating or publishing web content;
  • Development of internal checklists and content guidelines to support accessible content creation; and
  • Engagement with users with disabilities to obtain feedback and inform improvements.

We will continue to publish updates to this Accessibility Statement as we make progress and as further testing is completed.

10. CONTENT NOT WITHIN SCOPE

The following categories of content are outside the scope of our current accessibility programme, but we will endeavour to make them accessible upon request:

  • Documents (such as PDFs) published before the adoption of this Accessibility Statement, where those documents are not required for active administrative processes;
  • Third-party content embedded in our Website (such as social media feeds or maps) over which we do not have direct editorial control; and
  • Archived content that is no longer actively maintained.

If you need any content in an accessible format, please contact us using the details in Section 11 below and we will do our best to assist you.

11. FEEDBACK AND CONTACT INFORMATION

We welcome feedback on the accessibility of our Website. If you:

  • Find any content that is not accessible;
  • Experience difficulty using any part of our Website;
  • Require content in an alternative format (such as large print, Easy Read, audio recording, or an alternative file format); or
  • Would like to report an accessibility issue or make a suggestion for improvement,

please contact us using the following details:

Organisation: Experience Turks and Caicos
Address: The Regent Village, Unit H205, Grace Bay Road, Providenciales, Turks and Caicos Islands, TKCA 1ZZ
Email: info@visitturksandcaicos.com
Telephone: (+1) 649-946-4970

We will acknowledge your request promptly and endeavour to respond within ten (10) working days. Where we are unable to provide the content you need in an accessible format, we will explain the reason and suggest alternative ways of accessing the information.

12. PREPARATION OF THIS STATEMENT

This Accessibility Statement was prepared in April 2026.

It is based on a self-assessment conducted by Experience Turks and Caicos against the WCAG 2.2 Level AA criteria, supplemented by automated testing using SiteImprove. We intend to commission a formal manual accessibility audit, including testing with disabled users, in due course and will update this Statement with the findings.

We will review and update this Statement at least annually, and whenever significant changes are made to the Website.

13. ACCESSIBILITY REFERENCES

For further information on web accessibility standards and resources, please refer to the following: