TUI automates compliance and shifts left with BrowserStack Accessibility suite

TUI Group, a world-class travel and tourism leader, faced a critical challenge: their digital booking platforms needed to be as inclusive as their physical travel experiences. However, a lack of in-house accessibility expertise and reliance on late-stage external audits made compliance costly and slow.

By adopting BrowserStack Accessibility, TUI successfully “Shifted Left,” enabling non-specialist QAs to identify WCAG violations early in the SDLC. This transition transformed their external audits from a checklist of basic errors into strategic reviews, significantly reducing remediation costs and accelerating release velocity.

For TUI, Accessibility is not just a regulatory requirement; it is a brand promise. The company offers a spectrum of products—flights, accommodations, packages, and cruises—all under one hood. Their goal is a “barrier-free” journey, starting from the digital booking experience.

However, Hina Saini, Lead Quality Engineer at TUI Group, identified a major bottleneck in their mobile and web development lifecycles.

1. The internal skill gap: The internal QA team lacked deep expertise in WCAG. Hina noted, “There was no internal validation, and we had no clear idea on how and what to validate.” This lack of specialized knowledge meant the team was dependent on external experts, slowing down the development cadence.
2. Reactive rather than proactive fixes: Issues were often identified only during external audits, very late in the business cycle.

“By the time we were able to analyze the issue, it was very late… it was a costly business for us to fix it, have the fixes propagate to different environments, and get to the release process.” 

3. Regulatory pressure: With new Accessibility guidelines coming into force in the UK, TUI needed a solution that provided clear-cut resolutions rather than vague feedback. They needed a tool that could democratize accessibility testing, allowing generalist leaders to manage compliance without needing to be subject matter experts.

TUI evaluated several tools but selected BrowserStack for its ability to integrate into their existing workflow (App Live and App Automate) and its user-friendly approach to complex compliance standards. The decision was driven by the need for a solution that was skillset agnostic, one that could guide a non-expert through complex validation.

1. Implementing the Workflow Analyzer: TUI utilized the Workflow Analyzer within the BrowserStack Accessibility suite. This allowed the team to scan their applications without needing to manage a physical device lab or decipher complex code standards manually. The Workflow Analyzer allows teams to navigate through their app on real devices and capture page-level accessibility insights instantly. It automatically categorizes issues based on severity (Critical, Serious, Moderate, Minor), allowing teams to prioritize fixes based on user impact.
   
2. Leveraging the Spectra Rule engine: To ensure thorough validation without overwhelming the team, TUI relied on the Spectra Rule Engine. Spectra goes beyond basic checks, setting an industry benchmark by scanning for over 40+ WCAG criteria with advanced accuracy. By successfully evaluating complex scenarios like focus indicators, content reflow, and advanced color contrast, the engine auto-detects up to 2X more critical accessibility barriers often missed by standard testing tools. This ensured TUI had comprehensive coverage without requiring QA engineers to memorize exhaustive guidelines.

The adoption of BrowserStack Accessibility fundamentally changed TUI’s QA culture, proving that with the right tools, generalist teams can achieve specialist-level validation.

1. Achieving the “shift left”: The most significant KPI improvement was the reduction in time-to-detection. By moving validation to the internal team earlier in the cycle, TUI killed the compounding costs of late-stage bug fixing. “We were able to raise the issues on time and fix them before we had the audit,” Hina notes.
2. Making external audits count: One of the most interesting outcomes was the change in the nature of their external audits. Previously, audits were clogged with basic, redundant issues. “When you get into any audit cycle… you want to get rid of the easy wins,” Hina says. By using BrowserStack to clear the “basics” (e.g., contrast ratios, missing alt text, touch target sizes), the external auditors could focus on complex, interpretative user experience issues.
   “The audits are more fruitful now… we are not getting redundant issues.”
   
3. Zero infrastructure overhead: By utilizing BrowserStack’s Real Device Cloud, TUI eliminated the need for device maintenance. “No management and no configuration setup,” allowing the team to focus entirely on validation rather than infrastructure. This ease of adoption is a key reason Saini recommends the platform to peers facing similar resource constraints.
4. Comprehensive coverage and confidence: The team now operates with higher confidence regarding the June regulatory deadlines. The extensive coverage of the Spectra engine ensures that they aren’t just checking boxes, but are actually compliant with the latest WCAG standards across all digital touchpoints.