Virtual Tours and Equality Act Compliance: A Decision-Maker’s Guide to Accessibility

What are virtual tours and what is pre-familiarisation?

The basic idea

An interactive virtual tour is a digital representation of a real physical environment which allows somebody to explore that environment remotely using a smartphone, tablet or computer.

Pre-familiarisation means being able to see, understand or rehearse an unfamiliar location before physically arriving. It is closely related to journey and destination planning, but the important point is not the terminology. It is the ability to answer practical questions in advance. More information on this topic can be found here.

A useful interactive tour allows the person using it to investigate those questions independently, in advance of actually visiting the location and, importantly, to revisit the information as many times as they need, whenever they need.

Depending on the technology and how the tour is configured, users may be able to move between rooms and areas, view a space in 360 degrees, inspect routes and facilities, use floor plans, access annotations and links, or open additional text, audio and video information.

Ocean 3D's tours are browser-based and can be accessed on commonly used connected smartphones, tablets and computers. No VR headset or specialist application is required.

What does the Equality Act actually require?

The Equality Act 2010 places duties on service providers and other organisations to make reasonable adjustments for disabled people in circumstances covered by the Act.

The Equality and Human Rights Commission's current Code of Practice for services, public functions and associations, published on 5 August 2026, explains that the duty goes further than simply avoiding discrimination. For services and public functions, it requires organisations to anticipate barriers disabled people may face and consider reasonable adjustments before an individual disabled person has to encounter the problem.

That does not mean every conceivable adjustment must be provided. The question is whether disabled people face a substantial disadvantage and, if they do, what steps it would be reasonable for that particular organisation to take.

There is further information, including the legal opinion on virtual tours as a potential accessibility aid, on our Research and evidence behind pre-familiarisation page.

A wider move towards pre-arrival information

It is also worth looking beyond the words "virtual tour". A growing body of public-sector guidance and practice now recognises the importance of helping disabled people understand what to expect before they arrive.

NHS England guidance for mental health services, for example, recommends offering autistic adults familiarisation with the ward environment and keeping that information current and accessible. In rail, the Office of Rail and Road requires train and station operators to provide accessible advance information about station facilities, rolling stock and what disabled passengers can expect throughout their journey. National Rail also publishes an Autism Friendly Guide to Travelling by Train specifically around what to expect before and during a journey.

None of those provisions creates a general legal requirement to provide a 360-degree virtual tour. They do, however, demonstrate that advance familiarisation, accurate information and reducing uncertainty before arrival are increasingly established parts of accessibility practice.

So does my organisation legally need a virtual tour?

There is no universal legal rule saying that every venue, employer, school, hospital, hotel, transport operator or service provider must commission a virtual tour.

There is, however, a more useful question for a decision-maker:

"Are disabled people facing a foreseeable barrier because they cannot understand or familiarise themselves with this environment in advance, and what reasonable steps could reduce that disadvantage?"

A virtual tour is one possible answer. In another situation, a detailed access guide, photographs, maps, staff assistance, a familiarisation visit or another adjustment may be more appropriate. In some cases a combination will be strongest.

The EHRC's current Code also identifies good practice including planning in advance, conducting access audits, asking disabled people for their views, drawing attention to available adjustments and reviewing those arrangements over time.

That is why an accessibility discussion should begin with the barrier and the people affected, rather than with a particular product.

Is there independent research behind virtual familiarisation?

Research should be treated carefully because not every study involves the same population, technology or setting.

One particularly relevant peer-reviewed study was published in Education and Information Technologies and involved 359 young children entering school.

Before the school year began, 176 children viewed a short interactive 360-degree tour of their school while 183 children in the control group received no equivalent preparatory intervention.

Three weeks after entry, the virtual-tour group showed significantly lower teacher-rated school avoidance, higher school liking and greater cooperative participation. There was no statistically significant difference in self-directiveness.

There is also UK-specific work in this area. A 2025 British Journal of Special Education study co-created 360-degree virtual tours with two special schools as a transition tool for children with complex communication and learning needs. The authors concluded that virtual tours could be helpful to children and families familiarising themselves with a new school site.

View the Kotaman et al. school-adjustment research .

View the Parsons et al. special-school transition research .

What is the case for virtual familiarisation beyond compliance?

Equality Act duties matter, but accessibility is rarely the only reason an organisation finds advance visual information useful.

Better informed decisions

Prospective visitors, students, guests, patients and customers can understand a real environment before deciding whether to visit, apply, book or attend.

Customer confidence

Somebody may be physically capable of accessing a venue but still be uncertain about the entrance, route, atmosphere, facilities or what will happen after arrival. Providing that information in advance can remove avoidable uncertainty.

Marketing and accessibility can use the same asset

A useful virtual tour does not have to sit in an isolated accessibility section of a website. The same resource can help a disabled visitor plan a route while allowing another user to explore accommodation, classrooms, hospitality areas or customer facilities before making a purchasing decision. Virtual tours can also be a useful customer expectation-management tool as part of the marketing mix.

Operational uses

Depending on the project, the same captured environment may also have uses in staff familiarisation, training, facilities discussions, recruitment, inductions, emergency-event planning or other internal purposes.

None of those benefits is automatic. The tour needs to be accurate, easy to find, appropriately annotated and maintained when the real environment changes.

Common questions from decision-makers

Why is Ocean 3D involved in this subject?

Ocean 3D has been creating interactive virtual tours since 2018 and has worked with organisations and businesses of all sizes across sectors including transport, healthcare, education, hospitality, culture, sport, heritage and public services.

Accessibility has been a key focus of the company's work from its early years. Ocean 3D became the first business without a physical premises to receive the National Autistic Society's Autism Friendly Award and was also recognised through the New Civil Engineer Future of Airports competition for its transport-accessibility concept.

Ocean 3D commissioned the specialist Doughty Street Chambers advice discussed above in 2021 because the question was bigger than whether a virtual tour was an interesting piece of technology, and Chris Wood's belief that virtual tours should be considered alongside established accessibility aids such as wheelchair ramps, hearing loops, braille signage and accessible toilets.

The important question was whether lack of information about an unfamiliar environment could itself create a disadvantage which organisations should be thinking about.

Ocean 3D's position is not that every organisation must buy a virtual tour.

It is that organisations responsible for accessibility should consider the whole journey, including the period before somebody arrives, and ask whether people have enough information to understand the environment and make an informed decision about visiting.

If a virtual tour is the right solution, Ocean 3D can advise on practical options, scanning requirements, accessibility information, implementation, timescale and cost without assuming in advance that every organisation needs the same thing.

Talk to Ocean 3D Read our FAQs