This was the first article about Opening Doors® and our family that was in a trade publication. It marked the beginning of many more. The public relations folks at Embassy Suites Hotels and their executives were so enthusiastic and generous about promoting us and our programs to other companies. They set the tenor our business relationships. We don't have clients, they become family members..
Excerpts from Hotel Business News, June, 1992
"Family Gives Embassy A Lesson In Disability Etiquette" by Peter Romeo
Four years ago, a Virginia Family wrote to the CEO and sales chief of every hotel chain in the nation, urging them to tap an overlooked market of 43 million Americans by making their properties more accessible to the disabled.
"Out of all those letters, we got two replies," recalled Bill Duke, who had grappled with the inaccessibility of hotels while traveling with his wheelchair-bound son, Paul. "One was from a guy who said, thanks, good idea, but we're not ready to take action at this time. The other was from Hervey Feldman, than chairman of Embassy Suites. He wanted us to come down and talk with him.
The relationship that sprouted from that contact has helped Embassy take major strides in the now-mandated effort to accommodate disabled travelers. Long Before the landmark Americans with Disabilities Act was drafted, the all-suites chain was asking Paul Duke to help design a property that he could easily navigate.
More recently, the young paraplegic and his family crisscrossed the country to teach a sensitivity-raising program, dubbed design etiquette by Embassy, to all of the chain's trainers.
The curriculum was developed by the Dukes to change employee preconceptions that can isolate a disabled person as much as a physical barrier. For instance, servers are taught to address a disabled person when taking a table's order, instead of asking someone else, "What'll he have?"
The core of the Duke's Open Door program is the Ten Commandments of Disability Etiquette, a list of do's, Don't's, and bear-in-minds. They range from "Let the person give you instructions. He is an expert on his needs" (the Third Commandment) to "Relax. Remember: Persons with disabilities have a sense of humor just like you" (the Ninth Commandment).
With Embassy's encouragement, the Duke family plans to offer the curriculum soon to other brands, beginning with Hampton Inns, Homewood Suites and Harrah's casino-hotels. Like Embassy, those systems are owned by Promus Cos.
"I'd just as soon see them do this for the whole industry," Culp said of the Dukes' effort. "This is not something that we're doing for the money or to beat our competition. This is something we feel we should do as a service business.
"I think there were two reasons why they were the only ones that responded positively to the letters we sent," said Bill Duke, "They're big on training in general, and that had a lot to do with it.
"The other thing was that, when we met with Clyde Culp and 12 of his people, we found a tremendous amount of interest in the disabled issue. We learned that four of those people had close relations who were disabled, so there was an understanding there about the needs of the disabled.