Excerpts from Hotel Business, November 7-20, 1997
"IH/M&RS Session Touts Benefits of ADA"
by Toni Giovanetti
Since the industry became forced to comply with the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA), the costs of compliance have been the main topic of discussion-- not the benefits. A session at the International Hotel/Motel & Restaurant Show seeks to reverse that dynamic.
Entitled "Partnership For Profit: Having ADA Mean Additional Dollars Available, Instead Of Another Damned Aggravation" examines the ADA as providing hoteliers with a recently more mobile market, which can raise revenue. Case studies that prove the financial gains some properties and chains have made by learning how to cater to that market will be discussed using documentation and anecdotes.
One of the most convincing arguments supporting ADA-related marketing can be seen in the systemwide adoption of standard ADA rooms and training by the Promus Hotel Group, which began training its employees on how to treat disabled guests in 1991 through the Embassy Suites chain. That disability-friendly culture has paid off in dividends, according to Cheryl Duke, president of W.C. Duke Associates, which provides an ADA training and marketing program tailored to hotel staffs. The IH/M&RS session will be led by Cheryl Duke, and by Bill Duke, VP/program development for the company, which operates the Opening Doors program.
Embassy Suites, for instance, added $13 million in gross receipts to its revenues, according to statistics it has kept in tracking people who are mobility-impaired who stay in the ADA-approved rooms. The study does not include able-bodied people who stay in the rooms when a hotel is oversold, Duke said.
In five years since it began its ADA-oriented marketing, the Embassy Suites system has had a 180% increase in use of its rooms by disabled people, according to Duke.
"The interesting thing about this is they were able to do it without any advertising," Cheryl Duke said. "They were able to tap into the disability network."
For instance, Duke notes that an Embassy Suites in Tacoma, WA gained $75,000 in additional revenue after it had hosted a meeting there for a society of disabled people. The additional revenue was raised not from that initial meeting, but from subsequent ones. Duke said the business was derived from satisfied customers who were given the level of service they rarely get from hotels-- because they fail to properly train their staffs.
"A company or hotel may say, "Yes, we've got all the devices and we feel the staff is trained,' but actions speak louder than words," Duke said, adding that the training must be carried through to every employee in the hotel. "You can be the Taj Mahal of accessibility, but it doesn't mean anything if your staff is not comfortable with disabled people and have practical skills to know what they need to do in interacting with them.
Duke said she believes that the hospitality industry is more prepared to pursue the enormous market of disabled people than ever before because of recent attention to the issue.
"I think the hospitality industry's ear is more open on it because people are getting frustrated that they've put the money out for ADA rooms and they're still getting hit with lawsuits," Duke said.