Ladies and gentlemen please standby, your conference will begin momentarily. Ladies and gentlemen please standby. Your conference will begin momentarily.
Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Marketing for Accessibility: Tips and Tools for Hospitality Industry. At this time, all participants are in a listen only mode. Later we will conduct the question and answers session, and instructions will be given at that time. If anyone should require assistance during the conference, you may press star then zero on your touchtone telephone. As a reminder, the conference is being recorded. I would now like to introduce your host for today''s conference Ms. Marian Vessels, you may begin.
Good morning and good afternoon for everyone across the country depending on your timeframe. We welcome you to the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) audio conference series. My name is Marian Vessels and I will be serving as a moderator for this session. This program is brought to you by the ADA National Network. The ADA audio conference series is offered monthly and covers a variety of topics. As the operator indicated, today''s session is titled "Marketing for Accessibility: Tips and Tools for the Hospitality Industry." I am pleased to be joined today with two colleagues from the Northeast ADA Center, Mr. Don Brandon, and Ms. Sara Woody. I will be introducing them as their portion of the training comes about. Individuals who are joining us today using a variety of mediums including telephone streaming, audio on the internet, and realtime captioning. Individuals may also view today''s PowerPoint presentation online. Refer to the instructions that were to you for the URL. A written transcript to this session will be created, edited, and posted to www.ada-audio.org website, along with a digital recording of the session within 10 business days following the conclusion of the program. Our presenters today will provide us with some valuable information. And at the conclusion of our presentations, there will be a final opportunity for everyone to ask questions. We will also be taking questions after each separate presenter. The operator will provide instructions when we are ready to take these questions. Depending on the number of questions, we may not be able to add--address all of your issues or concerns today. If we are not able to, we encourage you to follow-up with your questions to your regional ADA center, by calling 1-800-949-4232, both voice and TTY. Okay. I will now begin my portion of the presentation. My name is Marian Vessels and I am the Director of the Mid-Atlantic ADA Center, a Disability and Business Technical Assistance Center (DBTAC), one of the ten regional ADA Centers that comprises the ADA National Network. Our center is a program of TransCen Inc, and we are located in Rockville, Maryland. I have been serving in this role since 1996. So I am finishing up my 15 years and I--am the liaison with businesses, employers, hospitality venues, and the disability coalitions in the Mid-Atlantic ADA Region which is Maryland, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Delaware, West Virginia, and DC. Among some of my roles and expertise is training and technical assistance in employment, hospitality, and in government sectors. Previous to this, I was the Executive Director of the Maryland Governor''s Committee on Employment of People with Disabilities, and I was Director of the Maryland Governor''s Office for Individuals with Disabilities. I have served as Executive Board Member of the President''s Committee on Employment of People with Disabilities many years ago. And I am the Board of the Parents'' Place of Maryland. Without further ado, I would like to start by starting our presentation, and talking about ways that you can be marketing to people with disabilities. Next slide please. This program is being brought to you in conjunction with the National Initiative that the ADA National Network developed, and it is called the Hospitality and Disability. This initiative is reaching out to the hospitality industry, both the lodging and restaurant industry, to encourage the incorporation of people with disabilities as guests and customers and as employees. This is a multi-phased, multi-pronged approach talking about public relations initiative, disability etiquette, ADA information, site survey information, and multi-faceted approach that we are looking at doing online training, remote training, and on-site training as well. Why should you care about incorporating people with disabilities into the hospitality arena? The general accounting office of the United States (US) government reports that the hospitality and hotel industry received a 12 percent revenue increase just by implementing access provisions of the Americans with Disabilities Act. We will be discussing more in-depth this afternoon, about some of those provisions that will be coming into play by March 15th, 2012 that will be another opportunity for you to include people with disabilities into your marketing strategy. Okay. I skip over real quickly, and a feature of the webinar. If you are going to be using close caption, please click CC icon on top of your screen or Control-F8 and adjust your screen. If you have questions type and submit questions in the chat area text box or press Control-M and enter text into that chat. Please do not use emoticons or handwriting features during this session. Okay. Open Doors Organization and Harris Interactive have both done studies together that were conducted in 2002. And at that time, it was stated that adults with disabilities spend approximately 13.6 billion dollars annually on travel, about 13.6 with a B. It is a huge amount of money and travel. In talking to hospitality venues, most often they will say that, "Um, we do not really need to focus on this--or this segment of the population. Because, you know, they really do not have a lot of money to spend, you know, most of them on social security or on disability." Suggested revenues from this market could easily double if certain needs were met and obstacles were removed. Next slide. A follow-up studies from that in 2002 is done in 2005, and that showed that travel by people with disabilities increase 50 percent in 2 years, and more than 21 million adult with disabilities travel for pleasure, and our business in 2004. Again, many people with disabilities are presumed not to be working. And for many it is unemployment is a huge factor. But there are still are many of us that-- I am person using a wheelchair, who happened that be doing this teleconference from a hotel this afternoon in preparation for a training that I am currently in. So I am in a hotel very frequently and need the accessibility features. If many of these barriers removed to be much easier for me to travel more frequently and with less concerns. A majority, 60 percent of those barriers were reported by people with disabilities. Those are physical customer service or communication during their stay. Okay. So we have five hotel user''s report that they encountered obstacles. Three out of five, that is a huge number. And some of the things that they reported on were that the doors are way too heavy, or hard to open. And there are easy strategies for being able to loosen the door pressure on many doors, very easily that not only affect somebody with mobility impairment but with arthritis, difficulty in grasping, poor body mechanics, a number of things. Many times there is not enough turning radius in a hotel bathroom for somebody using a mobility device, 20 percent reported that. And inaccessible shower bath areas where there was not a grab bar. They were not shower chairs or benches accessible for somebody to be able to use the bathing areas. Some barriers found at the hotels were also service personnel. Next slide. So some of that is lack of availability to convenient rooms such as having a convenient room on the first floor. Next slide. There you go. I am sorry, go back one. I missed it. Service personnel were not really aware of the services. And these are things going to be addressed in the new regulation. So if you called and said I need an accessible room that needs be close to the elevator, I want two double beds and a roll in shower. Many times hotel personnel were unable to provide that kind of information and were unable to describe the features that existed. And that was really a challenging thing for many people in trying to schedule a visit to a different city or in a different hotel. I found that recent trying to get an accessible room with the roll in shower and the only room they had available was queen and I needed two double beds. And they were unwilling to change beds. So I had to go somewhere else. Communicating--Communication related obstacles are also a huge barrier. Many times people report 15 percent that they had difficulty communicating with hotel personnel. Somebody with a speech disability, someone with hard of hearing or deaf relayed that they had a difficult time trying to communicate. Front desk personnel and others were unfamiliar with how to write notes back and forth. And what disability etiquette prevailed knowing that it is okay to tap somebody on the shoulder if they were deaf to get their attention. Things very simple and easy strategies you are uncomfortable in doing so and many times did not reach out to the guest with the communication disability in order to communicate effectively with them. Okay. I would like now to introduce my colleague, Don Brandon. But before I do so, I would like to see--Norma if you can open up the phones and see if anybody has any questions?
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, at this time, if you have a question, please press star then one on your touchtone telephone. If your questions have been answered or you would like to remove yourself from the queue, you may press the pound key. Again, at this time on the phone lines, if you have a question please press star then one on your touchtone telephone.
At this time, I am currently showing no questions in queue.
Terrific. Okay. I would like now to introduce my colleague Don Brandon. Don is the Director of the Northwest ADA Center, and he is recognized as a highly effective facilitator of civil rights trainings for managers and supervisors in businesses of all size and from a huge cross-section of industries. Don has worked with several universities in state and local government as well as rehabilitation programs through professionals. His training is for managers and supervisors, actively working with employees who have had workers compensation, or family medical leave claims or ADA requests. For the last 16 years Mr. Brandon has demonstrated a real gift for designing, accommodating, and making recommendations that have saved employers thousands of dollars in litigations and accommodation cost. Don''s down to earth style and comprehensive graphs about business management mark his training sessions with a high note of confidence that participants can rely on long after the training has ended. He initiated the farthest north independent living center with Access Alaska in 1984 and he served as Assistant Director of Programs at the Hawaii Independent Living Center. He served as the ADA Coordinator and Affirmative Action Officer for the University of Alaska and was serving as the Alaska State ADA Coordinator prior to working for CCER/Northwest ADA Center. And now I would like to turn the session over to Mr. Don Brandon.
Oh, thank you Marian. One of the things that I think it is exciting about having a chance to visit with you all today, is to describe some of the reasons why we wanted to do this and talking about tips and tricks for marketing yourself more effectively, mainly people with disabilities. And in the course of doing that, we thought it was going to be--which should be important to also describe to you some of just the highlight features that apply a hotel. But this does not cover everything or it does not go in a great detail about exactly their specific [static]. Just picked out some highlight areas just to sort of bring your attentions of somethings that will be changing with the new 2010 standards when they become the only thing you can work with after March 15th, 2012. Now our first slide, we have a graphic picture of a door swinging into a toilet room. Now historically, in the 1991 standards, bathroom doors or stall bathroom, stall doors for accessible stalls or restrooms. You did not have the luxury of the end swinging door. They all had to be out swinging. And the big reason for that is because they did not want people to be hit by the doors or often times when the door would swing in, there was not enough clear floor space to make transfers and that type of thing. Under the new 2010 standards, if you make a larger toilet room, or a larger toilet stall, you can have an in-swinging door as long there is enough clear force space 30 by 48 inches to get out of the way of the door when it swing in. And the slide it says, an accessible single user toilet user will acquire more space for transfers that is really not exactly accurate. It is really going to require more space for an in-swinging door if a--more, more clear floor space when your door swings in. And you will notice down at the bottom, we have a website listed for you. It is one that--a webinar that was put on by the US Access Board in which they go into a lot more detail about some of the requirements for toilet rooms and that type of thing. And I am not going to give you the whole long list of how to get there. But it is on your slide and in your handouts. Next slide please. One of the things that are going to be a characteristic for hotels to pay attention to is when you make alteration or add a new swimming pool, because you are going to have to also require a means of accessibility into the water itself. And if you have a swimming pool that is over 300 linear feet of pool wall, you are going to be required to have two accessible means of entry. In other words, you will have to have probably a pool lift or a ramp or a transfer area, sort of like a stair step transfer area into the pool then. If you are less than 300 linear feet of pool wall it requires only one way of getting it--means of getting entry, either with a lift with a sloped entry. The other--another caveat of the lift itself, you can only use these lifts in the end of the pool that is 48 inches--for the depth is 48 inches. Anything more than that you could not put it in those locations. Next slide please. One of the other characteristics that is new to the 2010 standards is an exercise machines will need to be on accessible route surrounded by enough clear floor space to make transfers or to use exercise equipment itself. But there is not a requirement that the exercise equipment--necessarily be design specifically for people with disabilities or the operable parts be accessible. But you do need to have an accessible route to get there and a clear floor space beside each type of accessible element that is located in your exercise rooms. And so this graphic pictures of some--like a weight bench, a running area, as well as some other types of devices that are little more--show little more usage for people who would sit down and exercise their legs or there is even one, and this is an ideal one that has a clear floor space where if you are a wheelchair user, you could sit a place and just use the portion for your upper body. Also look on the graph is a kit that the Hilton Hotels has put together and it shows an exercise ball, some elastic bands that you can use and some other devices that you can use like a yoga mat and that type of thing, located in the--sort of like an exercise kit. It is called an in-room kit. One of the things I want to continue to bring to your attention. Each one of these slides has located at the bottom of it a web link to the specific webinar that has some of these graphics and other--and more in-depth information located in. Next slide please. One of the things that are new in the 2010 standards also is if you provide a kitchenette, there has to be a work area besidethat is accessible. In other words, you have to have knee clearances and a clear floor space underneath it which means that workspace is going to--have to be no more than 34 inches high of the clear--of the finished floor and then at least 30 inches wide and with the ability to--with a forward approach. No matter what other elements in there may not have that--those same types of accessible features, the clear--the workspace areas will have to have that. And in addition, the washer and we are showing a washer and dryer in this slide. It shows that normally things within the reach ranges have to be at 34 inches but washers--top loading washers can be at 36 inches as well as front loading washers can have a minimum height of 15 inch--between--located between 15 and 36 inches. Next slide please. This slide we are showing that there is going to also be a new standard--standard is probably not the right the word. There is going to be a new caveat for rooms that have communication features located in them. In other words what the 2010 standards are going to require is that there would be more rooms with communication features and then not all be located in the wheelchair accessible rooms or rooms that have--were designed for people with mobility limitation. Historically, they put all the accessible features in the rooms designed for accessibility and they are--and as we--20 years later that they were discovering that there is a lot of competition for accessible rooms and communication rooms. And the population of people that are deaf or hard of hearing is much larger than the number of people with mobility limitations that use walkers or wheelchairs or crutches and that type of thing. And so the Department of Justice and the Access Board had this--come up with a new table for communication rooms and only 10 percent of these rooms can be locate--can be co-located in rooms that were designed to be--for people with mobility limitations. Next slide please. Now, one of things that we could not find is a good picture of an accessible sauna. So in our graphic we show four people in their towels doing a conga. And we are pretty convinced that this size sauna would be--would have the clear floor spaces in the turning radius is needed. It had at least four people doing the conga together. But what we are really trying to emphasize is that your saunas and steam rooms have to have--have to be accessible and that if you have benches in that type of thing in your sauna rooms that may--they may also use the clear floor space needed for transferring or turning radiuses. And one of the components of that is that they have to be movable if you use benches or seats that are--in those areas. So that when a person with a disability needs to have the accessible features, they can be moved out and easily usable. Next slide. Another key feature in the 2010 standards that is going to be applicable by March 15th of 2012 is that when you make reservations, you are going to have the--hotels are going to be have to require--are required to have the reservations on--that they do online available at the same times for people with disabilities that are available to anybody else. And so it is going to make--if you have a 24/7 online reservation system that also has to be accessible to people with disabilities and that it also has to have features where you described the accessible features of your guest rooms and the accessible features of your hotels. Another characteristic of the online reservation system is that hotels are required and there are very clear language now that says that they are required to hold back the guest rooms for people with disabilities until all other guest rooms of that type have been reserved. One of the reasons for that is, is that often times hotels will fill their accessible rooms to the--on a first come first served basis to anybody who shows up and they are mixed with all the other rooms and what the ADA is requiring is that you hold back those rooms and they would be the last rooms that would be released so that a person with a disability could spontaneously come into hotel and rent a room and have some assurance that if any rooms are left or the ones that would be left would be the ones that were--would be accessible and useable for them. And it is just a key feature of good customer service because you really want to use your accessible rooms for what they were designed for. Next slide please. In this slide, it is a little bit hard to read. But if you really sort of look closely, we have an example of a hotel''s website where they described some of their accessible features and--the information they give is kind of limited because it just says meets ADA regulations and it does not necessarily go into much detail about what that means. Next slide please. This one is slightly different where they have a little more information about some of the amenities in the room and they sort of divide it up into things for your comfort, things for your convenience, and things for your confidence. And under some of the comfort features they say it is accessible, they have talked about levered door hardware and that type of thing. And for convenience, they talk about being able to plug your phone in a desk height which gives you some sense that they are thinking about what the reach ranges are in an accessible room and they have a picture of an accessible toilet room in this graphic and in this website as well. But it really does not give you enough specific information about what, that I would be looking for as a wheelchair user traveling those hotel could give me more information on--even though they are making an attempt to say it is accessible and meets the ADA regulations and stuff like that. It is still not quite provided in the level of information that as a customer I would be more interested in. Next slide please. This is an example of a hotel. It really goes into detail that is much more communicable to me or to the community of people with disabilities. It talks about--Now this is I thought what was kind of interesting. It says it has two people--two peepholes on the door which is not an ADA requirement but it does described that they have two peepholes which means one of them at a location where you could look out and see who is there. It does say it does have door locks that are located 48 inches above the floor. Other features too, it talks about the guest in bath--guest room and guest bathroom doors that are--have a three foot opening. It also talks about things like the ones that open and close the curtains are available and what reach ranges they are at. It talks about knee clearances under the desks. It talks about having televisions that have remote controls on them and talks about some of the details of the accessible restroom saying that they all have transfer heights that are 17 and 19 inches and that the piping is covered and insulated and that the sink controls can be easily operated with a closed fist. So this is really a really good example of one hotel''s description of an ADA compliant room and provides much better information for me as the customer. Next please. On the 2010 regulations, also identified, described accessible and not accessible features in the hotel guest room, what the requirements say is that you have to do it in enough details, to reasonably permit people with disabilities to act as independently whether the given hotel room or guest meets hiswhether it meets their needs specifically or not. One of the things we are trying to get at in the regulations is it gives three key features of what needs to be described. The room type, the number of beds, breakfast, means the deluxe, executive suites and stuff like that, the communication for visual alarms and notification devices and the type of bathing facilities, like a bath tub with grab bars or whether it has a roll in shower or transfer type shower. And these are important elements in knowing about the basic minimums that the Department of Justice requires in describing your accessible features. Next slide please. Some of the examples that we are recommending that you provide in your guest room would be your door width, maneuvering spaces--and in the guest room. Often times in the guest room it felt, they put so much furniture in there. You do not--You can lose your accessible route or you do not have access to key features like the temperature control device or the ability to close curtains and that type of thing. So describing your closet space and then it has lowered closet bars to hang your clothes, curtain wands is a real important feature. Bed height is also one that is pretty important. Because a lot of hotels are going to these higher bed heights and they put them in all of the rooms even their accessible rooms where they really need--have rooms that are much more user friendly to people making a transfer from a wheelchair or a motorized chair. And it becomes really important that bed height be described. Notification, alarms, large print, audio recordings in the hotel services, room service menus that are accessible either via recording or availed, information on the Television (TV) channels. One of the things I do is that they have a hotel channel is that they--on their hotel channel, they also described the accessible features of their hotel because it really helps get information out to more and more people about where things are located, which ones are accessible and which ones that the hotel is cognizant of as for their guest. And also another important one that is--information about emergency exits. And so if you are orienting someone who is blind to room--or to your hotel, it becomes important to describe to them specifically where the emergency exits are located because they are in a strange place and would need that kind of information in the event of an emergency. Next slide please. And this is just a slide that talks about accessible features on the hotel property itself, things like accessible parking, and lowered counters at the check in. Carpet thickness, what we are trying to say--do not necessarily they have--you go around and measure the thickness but talking about low pile versus high pile carpet. So that people will not lose--so that the carpet does not provide a lot of rolling resistance for people that use wheelchairs and that it will not be sinking into them if they are mobility devices like walkers and crutches like--and stuff like that. Also if you have other amenities like your gym, your business center, your meeting rooms, and your restrooms ensuring that information about their accessibilities there. And another key feature that oftentimes is one of the last things to be dealt with is the complementary transportation. So if you offer to pick up service from the airport to the hotel, you have to offer something complimentary that is accessible to people with disabilities as well. And so, if you are hotel van is not lift equipped, adding some other plan of action about making sure that people with mobility limitations can use the--transportation is also another key feature. Next slide please. Okay. One of the things that becomes kind of a frustration for a lot of folks who travel with disabilities is when the staff who are providing check in for the guest really do not have information or any understanding about the difference between a room that has an accessible room that has a bathtub or an accessible room that has a roll in shower or rooms that have communication features in them. And so it becomes important that you train your staff on those features so that they know the differences between the different types of rooms and that they communicate respectfully with guests with physical or even an intellectual disability as they are checking in. Next slide please. And Marian, this is where we kick it back to you.
Right! And operator, I would like to open the phones for questions.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, at this time, if you have a question please press star then one on your touchstone telephone. If your question has been answered or you would like to remove yourself from the queue, you may press the pound key. Our first question. The line is open.
Go ahead
Hello. How are you?
Hi, sir.
I got probably about three questions. When I am in the wheelchair and when I make my reservations online or over the phone and I request an accessible room and then when I get there, there is no accessible rooms available, what do you do?
Well, what the hotel is required to do is to sort of guarantee that that is an accessible room like there would anybody else that has a room, because they are supposed to hold them back specifically for you. If that is not available for you, then there are a couple of different approaches you can take. You can ask the hotel to--and some of the better hotels do this. I checked into a hotel once and they did not have the access room they had promised me but they provided me transportation to a hotel nearby that did have accessible features and they comp me for the room because of the inconvenience. But that is the customer service side of it. But talking to the management about what alternatives are available is one thing that can be done. Also, whatever the local jurisdiction is, you know, that there is nothing that says you cannot file a complaint when that type of things happens because their policy and procedure needs to be corrected. Or writing them a letter sometimes will get that policy and procedure corrected without even going to the complaint process. But, you know, the complaint process is there for people with those types of issues when a hotel makes an error like that.
This is a major hotel and this is in Las Vegas and their solution was that I just stay in a non-accessible room until the next day when they were going to have accessible room available. And the next day they did on the first floor and outside of my window was the dumpsters for the hotel. So I was not happy with their solution at all. The next thing has to do with compliant rooms and this might be more for architects than anything. I worked 30 years in the construction industry and I am still having a hard time with some of these things. One of them is the door to the accessible room. A lot of times you need two hands in order to open the door. You got to put your card in, you got to grab the lever, and pull the lever down to get in a room. Well, a lot of people with disabilities ca not do that. They do not have the use of both their hands to be able to lean on and do that. Second one is you have listed on here that walls switches 42 inches high which is great, but do not forget about wall outlet because I need to plug my power chair in and if that outlet is 18 inches above the floor and behind the night stand, that does not do me any good either. Then the third thing is in the shower is to have some type of flexible holds on the shower, so either on a rod that goes up vertically then that could be lowered or holds that I could take out that I could hold
yeah
in the shower head--pardon?
One of the things--you are exactly right. You are going to some--I mean, to a level of detail that we were not--we did not have time to go into, because those are key features and as far as the operable reach ranges and that kind of stuff because you are exactly right, the flexible shower heads and all that kind of stuff is--are one of the things that the ADA requires. But we just--we are just trying to hit things at sort of a 10,000 foot level, not really drilling down into the very specifics of it.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
That is it.
Thank you. Our next question. Caller your line is open.
Hi. I just want to know the standard for swimming pools--sorry, swimming pools and fitness centers, are they for new centers and pools or a modified pools and are those requirements mainly for hotels or is it common areas for, let us say, a conference area or condo or apartment or?
Right and a great question. The pool requirement, it islet us start with what I remember. The first part of your question was it is for anything that is altered or new construction and the second part of your question was what about conference centers and that type of thing. And we are sort of referring to things that are covered by Title 3 of the ADA. There can be occasions where conference centers can be owned by a state or a local government or a city or they have pools and they have requirements very similar to the ones that we are describing here.
Okay, thank you.
but the threshold for program compliance versus readily achievable barrier removal. You also mentioned apartments and condos and that kind of thing, they also are covered, but it depends upon how they are used. It is not because fair housing really does refer more to apartments. But if a condo is being used a lot like a hotel, gets used where you rent it for so many days and then somebody else comes in and use it for so many days, then the requirements for accessibly and stuff like that would be begin to apply in those places as well as for altered or new construction.
Okay, thank you. And one of our fellow employees at the office has the question here. He asks this question now or do you want us to get back into the queue?
Why do not you answer--we will ask that--answer that question and we have one online and then we will get back to the material. And if there is any more, you can ask it at the end of the session, okay?
Okay, thank you.
Hi. I was wondering when I opened up the session you all were talking about the amount of money that they were receiving and how much it had doubled. Is there anything to make the hotel industry to be accountable for that money as far as taxable or anything like that or if that is just extra money that they get--they are going, and now, you know, obviously, the increase.
Well our goal is to show the industry that complying with the law not only is, you know, the legal thing to do, but there is a real financial incentive to reaching out to the disability market, and not only complying with the law but advertising that they are and we will give you some examples for the run in this training about one hotel system that does just that. So we are hoping that they will want to do it in order to show that increased revenue which is the bottom line for any profit-making business. We do have a question online that said since I have already said that I am a person in a wheelchair and I am in a hotel right now, how would I rate the hotel. And actually the hotel we have used before and it is in pretty good shape. I would rate the room a 9 out of 10. It is very, very comfortable, very accommodating, everything is appropriately placed and within good reach and range. Even though we have mentioned it before, I noticed in the front though that the van accessible space is not van accessible. It is a standard accessible space with a smaller access isle. So that is something that we will reiterate again with them. So even when a hotel does try, sometimes they do not actually do a great job of it and you need to keep reminding them of the smaller details. I would like to get back to the PowerPoint now. We are on slide 23, and this is showing you our new hospitality and disability website that we hope would be up and functioning today, but there are a few little glitches so we will not be totally functioning for maybe another day or two. The new URL will be www.adahospitality.org and on this website you will find tremendous number of resources including the new regulation, all of the legal precedents for Department of Justice suing hotels for the lack of accessibility, training programs that can be downloaded for both hotel and restaurant, industries and can be used by anyone, industries or advocates in assisting the industry in becoming more accessible, disability etiquette tools and tips, tax credits and deductions, fact sheets. One that we have up there now is on a shower bench and what the standard should be, et cetera. So there are lots and lots of great resources. And it is still not functioning correctly today, but we invite you to come and visit it in the next few days and, hopefully, we will continue to use it as a resource. Next slide. One of the trainings that we have on there is hotel customer service in the ADA. The hotel that I am currently in, we offered this training and they sent every single staff person. We did a full day of training. This training can be done in an hour. This is training that you can download and use yourself. And we did a series of six back to back trainings which included everyone from groundskeepers to the chef to the general manager, front desk staff, and the supervisors of the maids and cleaning crew. So it was very exciting and to show--we were pleased to see after--when we came back a year later, that one of the bellman came up and said he was so excited he was able to use the training and was able to assist somebody who is blind to find their way through the hotel. And it is a really large hotel and lots of empty space which makes a little more challenging to navigate. And he said he felt very comfortable and in the past he would never have approached them about how to give them his elbow and walk them through. And he was just so excited. So it was a great validation of how effective the training can be. Next slide. One of the things, this is an example of one of the slides in that training that talks about guests who are blind or have low vision. And it provides tips about providing information and alternative format, how you can read, you know, the menu or a hotel document to the guest. Showing the guest as this bellman did around the lobby to their room and other features such as the exercise room or the pool that they may want to visit. Showing them some simple things like how do you sign your name, where it is on the guest check or the registration form? Even something as simple as--for many of us it can be a challenge getting our keycard in the door as was mentioned for somebody with mobility impairment. Can you imagine somebody with a visual impairment that does not know which side is up or down and which side needs to go into the key lock that clipping the edge of a keycard is a very simple and easy way so folks know which corner goes into the top left corner of the key reader in their room. Some I have noticed now actually have Braille and it tells you which side up and which side goes in. Some others have put a strip of tape on it. So there are a variety of ways that will assist somebody who has a vision disability to be able to use their room. Next slide. I mentioned that we have fact sheets, and one of the fact sheets is for removable tub seat or transfer bench. For those of us with mobility disabilities, having the ability to have a transfer bench and even a bathtub settings that may be accessible but the configuration is not accessible for us, this becomes the best way for us to be able to transfer safely into a roll in shower or a standard tub. And you can see in the picture to the right, one of the things we recommend or a suction cup so that the chair does not walk as you are transferring, that it has both the left and right features that can go into many different configurations of bathtubs or shower situations, that it has a back. We find that the shower stools that many hotels provide are incredibly unsafe, they have no back, they are not designed for a tub that may be rolled edges, et cetera, and this allows with the edge going outside the tub a safe transfer area and the back provides stability as well as the other grab bar and the arm. Next slide. We talked about tax credits and tax deductions. Tax deductions for a hotel can be very important. If they are modifying their facility, let us say that they realized that the parking space that I indicated that they did not have a van accessible, a true van accessible spot, they had the sign but not the striping, correct, if they needed to redo their whole parking lot because they had done it inappropriately, they might be able to use this tax deduction to remove barriers. Let us say that in their lobby bathroom they did not have a fully accessible stall and needed to take out an extra stall and make a fully accessible stall. So they can combine all these projects and applies every tax year for deduction up to 15,000 dollars. This also is not just in removing barriers, but as Don mentioned earlier, for providing that accessible van shuttle to and from the airport or if they do it to local businesses in the area, that this would go to purchasing an accessible van with a lift that could be accessible for a variety of people with different kinds of disabilities. And there is information on the website about how to access those tax credits. Again, this is a very nice kit for a hotel. It does not apply when they are renovating and doing the whole hotel or redoing all their rooms. But if they are going in and specifically addressing barriers, this is a great way to do that. Okay. Operator, do you want to see if we have any quick questions?
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, at this time, if you have a question, please press star then one on your touchstone telephone. Our next question. Caller your line is open -- your line is open.
Yes, our question has to do with the previous lecture on--we were wondering if they could describe a little bit more about the requirements for communication features.
Sure. We can do that. Communication features have to do with emergency equipment that is located in a room for--like for fire alarms with the strobes and the horns necessary to alert people to an emergency, other communication equipment would have to do with communicating over the telephone, from a guest room to the front desk, either via TTY. And--But it also would include anything that is communicated for people who have visual limitation. So I think brochures and that type of thing will need to be in an accessible format, available for them as well and those are just sort of the highlight there. There is a lot more detail about like, you know, what pitch levels, the audible tones have to be at and that kind of a thing, but those of a sort highlights of them.
Thank you. Our next question. Caller your line is open.
Yes, We have done some work with our local hotel, motel association especially dealing with low vision opportunities and we have had some real good success about changing out light bulbs because they are always so dim and especially the bulb over the door where the evacuation explanation is for fire and we have had them enlarged those and also enlarged the remote control and also the telephone keypad so that people with low vision can see those and it is been very, very beneficial.
Great! Those are some great examples. Also another key feature for communication, to making sure that your television has close captioning operable and so that you have more of a modern TV basically.
But if you cannot read a remote to find it--
I was agreeing with you Bob.
Yeah. We--Yeah. And that is been very, very helpful but there is also some responsibility to back the person with disabilities, I have all--I always ask, can you please explain to me what the procedures are in case we have a fire. And we have seen some--as matter of fact I was in a hotel where we were having a convention dealing with the ADA and they have escalators and all that and the convention was on the second mezzanine and escalators would help everybody but you can only get one wheelchair in their elevator and a fire has a broken out, it had been bad news bears. But there were a lot of times people that do conventions for people with disabilities, they put us in places that there is a fire trap.
Yeah, Bob did you have a question that we can deal with?
Well, I was just concerned because I have never seen much of--much being done with the addressing, the low vision situation in any of the literature and things.
Bob, this is Marian, on the New Hospitality website, in the future, we do have emergency evacuation section there now and we will be enhancing that in the future. So you may want to check back and we will eventually be putting up more and more information on emergency evacuation as well, okay?
Good, thank you very much.
I would now like to introduce our next speaker. Sara Woody is a coordinator for the Northwest ADA Center''s BluePath Program, an online membership and marketing program that works proactively with business and customers with disabilities, to encourage access and usability. The BluePath website is the directory that promotes user friendly businesses and provides information, on their accessible features. Sara surveys facilities for accessibility, provides technical assistance, and educates businesses about barriers and alternative accessibility features. Sarah is a passionate person about disability issues and serves as President for the Mental Health Action, a nonprofit advocacy organization. She also serves on the Seattle Commission for People with Disabilities. Sara worked for 7 years at the Village Integrated Services Agency in Long Beach, California training mental health professionals, law enforcement, policy makers, students, consumers and community members on best practices in mental health recovery. Sara?
Thank you Marian. I hope everyone can hear me okay. I have spent the last few years here at the Northwest ADA Center learning about marketing and learning how to put it on my ADA goggles when I go out into the community to start noticing businesses and the accessible features they offer. So I have had a high learning curve and my hope is that allows me to talk of businesses in a way where you know they are often on a learning curve as well to learn about these types of things. So on the next slide, slide 29, what I have here is this screenshot of the website that Marian mentioned that we are going to be talking about. It is called BluePath. And it says right there at the top that BluePath is about Businesses Committed to Accessibility. You can probably tell right away that it is a business directory. And so when you click on anyone of these BluePath member businesses, you learn about the usability of that business, based on such things like accessible parking, accessible route, accessible restrooms, signage and services provided to those with mobility or sensory disabilities. On this website you can write reviews and rate these features as well. So I will show you some examples but first let me explain BluePath more because this could be a complementary tool for the requirement of posting pictures and accessible features on your website. This is great for hotels. And so, BluePath is a marketing program developed here at the Northwest ADA center and it is designed to engage businesses on the topic of accessibility in the way that makes sense to them, basically more customers. BluePath is about proactive barrier removal and facility assessment that earns the business membership on BluePath website where they will then be marketed to a targeted audience that being people with disabilities. And beyond that market, the family and friends of people with disabilities who typically accompany them when they go out to eat, go on vacation, go to the movies, or go shopping. BluePath allows us to talk to businesses about this valuable market in a way that we have been talking about already this morning and talking about a return on investment. BluePath''s primary goal is to create more information online as well about the access it faces as a business. So that people with mobility or sensory disabilities have more choices than they may be aware of when they want to go out into the community. Often people go to the same restaurants. They stay at the same hotel chain because they learned by trial and error what places have good and bad access. But with the BluePath website, for example your hotel, you can provide detailed information and about the accessibility that you have to offer a guest so that they can expand their options and know before they go. And we like to say at BluePath, "The more that know. The more can go." So, on the next slide just a bit more information. There is the website. It is www. blue-path.com. And what we want to do is encourage businesses to remove barriers and improve cost disability access and I think this is our goal based on a lot of the questions that we have heard already that even if there are not physical barriers, there is still lot of little things that a hotel can do to increase their hospitality to guests. So one of the tools that BluePath has on the website is a checklist. And a business can complete this as a self-assessment of their building or they can contact with us through a local BluePath partner to do this survey and this survey is like the application for membership. And we have a technical--sorry, a technical assistance team that does a review of the checklist and then provides back to the business a detailed report about the elements and features that should be changed or improved. What we really try to do is outline how to make the changes and provide solutions and affordable alternatives. Because we know it can be really confusing or seem overwhelming. So in the report we make it--we try to make it very easy for the business to put those changes in place. BluePath provides tools to evaluate the physical access and educate on the disability focused customer service, so just like the disability and hospitality website, we link to that site, we also have some of our own information online. Besides the checklist, we also have fact sheet, videos and articles that can provide a business with tips and industry information on how to serve guests with disabilities. We inform customers like I was mentioning about the access that they will find. And the way we do that is we call the details describing those features priorities and so you can describe how usable your hotel is and that is your chance to engage customers with what you are trying to do to make their stay more comfortable. And we named the program BluePath because we realized that businesses have to learn about providing access and it is an ever changing process. And just like, you know, Marian was describing her particular situation and we have some other callers describing what they encounter when they go to a hotel, there are so many different possibilities. So you, the hotel manager, or maintenance supervisor, step on to the path with us and make a commitment to learn what you can and make changes when you can. So given there are no major barriers at your hotel, this commitment can earn you membership and a spot in the spotlight in our website and your chance to be right in front of the disability market when it comes the time for them to choose a hotel for their travel. The next slide. I know that this is hard to read so I hope you go to our website and check it out. But this is a screenshot example of a BluePath member profile. So it shows the date that the survey was completed and then there in the middle it has a list of BluePath priorities, and it really provides the guests with comprehensive idea of what to expect when they arrive at the hotel. They describe parking options, they even warn guests that their ramp was recently damaged and I actually remember when I did the survey at this hotel, somebody just backed into it. So they actually put that information out there and let people know that it is being repaired. The hotel says that their guest room doors are heavy so they recognize that and I know I had a--we had a caller mentioned that. They are here on the website. They can tell you as a customer or potential guest that they realize that and they are working to reduce the tension on the doors to make them lighter. They even mention that they are installing full-length mirrors in the lobby restroom because they discovered the current mirrors are mounted too high. And then, down at the bottom, towards the bottom of the screen, they described the guest room and that says "accessible rooms provide lower clothing bars, shelf, towel bar, hair dryers, and iron. Visual notification like for doorbell and phone, TTY phones are available. Roll in shower is 50 inches that has all the requirements. So here, I just want to note that the roll in shower is supposed to be a bit larger. And so they put the actual requirements so that somebody if they know that they need more space, would realize that maybe this is not the room or can make prior arrangements. It describes that the tub has a folding seats and requirements. And then they say, if you need any assistance with moving furniture in the rooms, please just let our staff know. So they are advertising their accessible features. But notice that they are also advertising that their staff would be available and welcoming to provide any further assistance if needed. And that is a great open door for people with disabilities. Let us see, on the next slide, slide 32, this is kind of the bottom page. I am sorry I cannot show you the whole website page, or screen, but this is another example of the different business. And on their profile you can see that you can also post pictures. And again, this is--requirements, the new requirements for the ADA. So this tool just happens to complement that requirement. So another example you can describe your restaurant if your hotel has a restaurant and you are [inaudible] as well. And like I said you can post pictures and it is really valuable for somebody to see this in the roll in shower, and see the lowered closet bar so they know they will not be frustrated when they arrive trying to hang up their clothes. And this is such great marketing solution because so often people with disabilities, they run into very frustrating situations, like you have heard today on the phone already. So knowing in advance what to expect can provide a great deal of confidence. And I am thinking just imagine a traveler with disabilities being able to fully understand the accessible features at your hotel and that has allowed them to be independent versus what if they cannot get that information at another hotel, which one do you think they will choose? They will choose yours because they have that information. Next slide, slide 33. So we can go through this really quick because I just want to throw up some pictures here so you can see better what type of pictures to take around your facility that really provides people with information that will make them confident about arriving and knowing that they will be able to get there and move around independently and have a very welcoming comfortable stay. So we already mentioned parking can be. It is basically the welcome sign to a business. It is the first thing that somebody will experience. So having a picture of a parking space that has the access aisle, and it is marked, first you want to make sure that it is marked correctly. But showing what is available is going to be important. Slide 34, the next slide, here I could say, advertise your space. Here is a picture of a lobby. It is got nice hard wood floors, automatic doors, it really looks very appealing for somebody that might have more serious mobility issues like not opening doors, or maybe has a larger chair or scooter. This is great to see in advance. Slide 35, the next slide. And again, advertise your space. This hotel happens to have a great deal of space in the restaurant between tables. That is very enticing. The next slide. Showoff your accessible features we are talking about marketing. So throw these pictures on your website. Look, these hotels have lower counters and friendly staff standing behind them. So show that off. Put that picture online. On the next slide, here are just two examples of letting people know that the accessible showers and tubs are there. On the picture on the left, you might notice that there actually is a folding bench in the roll in shower. It just happens to be on a wall that even when you put that bench down, it would be too far to reach, the handle to turn on the water when seated. So a good solution for this instead of remodeling the entire shower is to have those transfer benches available that Marian was talking about and you can put that right in there and somebody can make it as usable as they need to be. And on the picture to the right, there--oh. [Laughter] Thank you. The pictures to the right shows that handheld shower nozzle and notice that it is been lowered to the very bottom of that bar. A lot of times, I have seen inaccessible bathrooms, the nozzle is there and that is great. But it is at the very top of the bar where nobody could actually reach it, to use it. So that is a good tip for housekeeping staff for an accessible rooms making sure that that handheld nozzle is lowered all the way to the bottom. Okay, next slide. And here is a picture. Somebody would be very happy to see this closet to know that they have drawers and iron, all within reach and there is a lowered closet bar there that the hotel has installed. What I would like to point out here is those features are great but the hangers are on the top bar. And so they may not be able to reach that. So again, that is an example of housekeeping staff remembering to make sure the hangers are on the bottom bar. And these are all hospitality tips that you can find on either of the websites. So make sure they access those. Slide 39, the next slide. This is just showing a creative way that the hotel utilized space to make sure that the microwave, and the refrigerator, the coffee-maker is within reach here in this accessible room. And so they are showing that of in this picture. On the next slide, here, for me, I always love the bathroom in a hotel room, where I spend most of my time. So here knowing that the towel racks are lowered, the hair dryer is lowered, I often see those mounted really high and the light switch is lowered, there is space under the sink. So that is a very welcoming picture for me. It is look like I would be very comfortable in that hotel room. The next slide, is just showing the space, you know, having that maneuvering space as--so you can move through the room between the beds, the one on the right it looks like it might be kind of tight in there but the furniture is pretty minimal, looks like you can move that chair around so it would not be too difficult. And like Don was mentioning in that top left picture, there is not furniture in front of the blinds so somebody could go up there and move the curtains around. Oftentimes, there are big, heavy chairs in front of the window that makes it very hard to approach. So, you know, showing a picture of the room that you have made, you know, accessible, that is pretty easy to do. Next slide, 42. I just wanted to point out that on the BluePath website, we have added a video. It is a funny video but it is serious and it has two vignettes and it is aimed at hotels, at hospitality industry for serving guests with disabilities. And one scenario involved a young woman using a wheelchair and this vignette is great for housekeeping staff that might not be English speaking because it has no dialogue but it just simply demonstrates the variety of ways to maintain an accessible room so that it stays usable for each guest. Like some of the things I have mentioned and making sure that blankets and pillows are located on the bottom shelves and not stored in the top shelves so that people can reach them. And then the second vignette shows hotel staff doing or interacting in a very uncomfortable, unprofessional way with a guest who is blind and then video rewinds and shows the correct way to communicate including how to provide an orientation to the guest room with tips just like Marianne mentioned like cutting one side of a keycard or placing a sticker on the "Do Not Disturb" side of a door hanger, if the other side says something different like "Housekeeping Requested." So BluePath is a tool that is available now for you to utilize. It has these videos I have mentioned, ADA information, the checklist. And again, since hotels are required now to post pictures and descriptions of their accessible features, BluePath allows you to do just that and put right in front of the travelers who will be using those rooms. We are building--As you know, we are building our membership base here in Washington and Oregon where we are located in the Northwest ADA Center and we are starting to expand the program with the new partners in Idaho and Alaska. But as you see with some of those travels stat earlier, people with disabilities are traveling across the country so any hotel could be a magnet for someone traveling from the Pacific Northwest. And we started to see interest in this program growing, and our goal is to go nationally. So kind of switching gears, have hotels seen success in marketing their accessibility? We do have a great example. If you are not already familiar with Microtel Inn, and I think that is the next slide. So this franchise, Microtel Inn holds very high accessibility standards. They have three designs for accessible rooms and they also have accessible fitness bags for in room use, kind of like we showed earlier. And I wanted to just give you some quotes here because I think they are pretty convincing coming from the CEO of Microtel Inn and Suites. And this is Michael Levin and he said, "We want to be the preferred chain for travelers with disabilities. I think the ADA is an opportunity and there was a potentially significant market." And then Roy Flora, who is now the president, he says that they have expanded the effort in capital and are rightfully reaping the rewards. He says "that in every company that I have worked with that invests effort in accommodating customers with disabilities, they realized a profit benefit." So as a hotel, when you hear that Microtel prioritized and marketed their accessibility and then see that they reported a 275 percent increase in ADA room nights over their previous year and that they had net revenues, ADA room nights, increased by more than 260 percent and internet booking for ADA rooms increased more than 400 percent, we really hope that this shows you the substantial power of the disability market and the power of marketing your accessibility. The next slide. Again, I am going to switch gears a little. Thanks for being flexible and moving along with me. But if you are not thinking about--or, I am sorry. If you are not just guests with disabilities but also think about guests with arthritis in their knees or hearing aids or cataracts and I am going to say think about your parents or your grandparents and have they started talking about not being able to get around like they are used to or maybe have you started talking about not getting around like you used to? These are interesting facts from the US census 2006. So it is a bit dated but still pretty interesting. If you look at that number, 20 percent of male seniors have two disabilities. And on the next slide it shows that female seniors have 25 percent have two disabilities. And on the next slide, maybe you have heard on the news lately about baby boomers. How many baby boomers are aging and how in just four years nearly half of the US population will be 50 and over. The US census calculation puts that number to over 70 million--70 million baby boomers in just 20 years. But if you consider these figures, it means millions of people will be needing accessible features because aging will simply cause some infirmities and disabilities. But, as we know about baby boomers, it is not going to slow this generation. But wait, we have been talking about marketing, and now you have to do all these online marketing and posting pictures on websites, but old people are not online, right? Next slide. Well, I Googled baby boomer marketing and you can get all kinds of stats because marketers are starting to realize how huge this customer group is and how much they are worth. So take a look at these stats here. The stats show that seniors now make up 20 percent of online users and that the over 50 crowd are internet savvy and they are now the web''s largest market. So they are online, they are making purchasing and travel decisions online, and you want as much information out there on you website to entice them to be your guest and allow them to complete the entire decision making and reservation process online of even on their mobile device. So this is definitely a trend and it is only growing. On the next slide--and that is actually a phrase that I heard on the news the other day, the silver tsunami, which is--
The Monkeys song Here we come
It is a pretty good example given that marketers are realizing that this is coming in a big wave here. Ten years ago, it says that the 50 plus age group controlled 67 percent of the country''s wealth. So I am sure that number is only larger now and growing. It says here nearly 100 percent of baby boomers are plugged in, they are tuned in, and they are active marketing and on social networks and they are talking about products and brands important to them. And so if 42 percent of travel purchases happen online, make sure your product and your brand is displayed online, your accessible rooms, your hotel amenities, and market your accessibility alongside your brand and make the connections for people. And I am just suggesting that the BluePath member logo would be a great thing to have on your website. One the next slide, 49, will baby boomers, who are aging, will they engage on your brand online? This is a question that was asked on this website I saw, motionactive.com. And this is a book they wrote, Dot Boom, and these are headlines that I saw and I love the "Tweetin Grannies and Gramps Outpace Social Whippersnapper." And I know, I have--I had aunts and uncles that are on Facebook. You know, so this is all information to pay attention to. And they stressed on here, these marketers, position your brands to meaningfully engage baby boomers online and produces ultra reflective of the web''s largest, wealthiest, and most underserved consumer group. Then on the next slide this is another term I have heard recently, "The Graying of America." It says that more than 100 million, strong, baby boomers and older customers born before 1965 are the single largest consumer group in America. They are the wealthiest, best educated, and most sophisticated of purchasers with more disposable income than any population in America. They are, in fact, the new customer majority. So this new customer majority is aging and will naturally have age related disabilities and the market out there, hotels, retail stores, the websites, everything is going to be changing to more of a universal design and meeting the needs of these folks. On the next slide, 51, this is just an example of a screenshot that I pulled off of the AARP website. They have an article "Flying Tips for Wheelchair Users." So they know their audience and the issues that they face in traveling. And then on the next slide, just to give you an idea there are dozens of books and websites and blogs that are dedicated to the growing number of people with disabilities that are traveling because technology has provided more opportunity and society just demands an attendance in equal opportunity. So check out some of these websites, see what information is being discussed, and notice that there are books being written, and you make sure that you are marketing to these types of websites and make sure that you are on these lists. The next slide, 53, just more information. SATH is the Society for Accessible Travel. And notice here that they reported there--that they saw their members'' hotel bookings more than doubled last year even though we were in a recession. So again, just--we are--they are out there traveling so. In the next slide, 54, I think is the last slide. So I want to leave you with the most recent article that we have come across in National Geographic Traveler. This was in the September 2011 issue. And I encourage you to read the entire article. It has a lot of good information. It looks like I forgot to put the link on this site. But you can find the link on our website if you look in the twitter feed. But anyways, this journal has interviewed Dr. Scott Rains and he writes a blog called "The Rolling Rains Report." And they discussed travel, disability, universal design, and something really cool called "inclusive tourism." And this is just the final comment about the importance of the disability and aging market. And we will just close it by saying "Boomers, many of whom came of age holding a protest sign, are joining forces with disability and senior groups to add muscle to the cause of increased accessibility in travel. They do not intend to let hip replacements and insulin shots stop them from traveling, nor will they be pandered to, stigmatized, or written off." So that is the last slide for us. So hopefully, I left a few minutes for questions.
Thank you, Sara. The next slide will show you how you can bookmark ADA Hospitality, where you will find the article by Scott Rains on National Geographic Traveler, how to link to BluePath, and how to get a hold of your local ADA center. We do have just a couple more minutes for questions. So if you have one you would like to enter in the chat room, please do so. Operator, could you give us instructions one last time?
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, at this time, if you have a question, please press star then one on your touchstone telephone. Our first question Caller your line is open.
Alright, yeah, I was just interested in the website and how I could become more active in it. I am in southeast region.
Well, as I said, there are trainings that you can download and become proficient in and then talk to your local restaurant, hotels about offering to provide training. You can also contact your local ADA center by calling 1-800-949-4232 and talk with them about ways that you can become better educated. Going on to the ADA Hospitality website and looking out the tools and resources, checking out BluePath''s website, and checking out those resources as well would be a great way to become fully educated about the new regulations, about how to market to businesses, your ability to assist them in marketing to people with disabilities would be a very good first start.
Alright, I am at the website now and I think I will follow through on it.
Terrific, thank you.
Alright.
I also wanted to add that on the BluePath website, there is a way for people to register as a path finder. And the path finder is somebody that can go in and you log in and you are able to write reviews about BluePath''s member businesses, but also you can nominate businesses and that is a really good way for us to be able to contact the business and say you have been nominated by one of your customers that thinks that you are a great, you know, accessible business, why do not you consider being on this website, or give us a chance to say somebody was not able to come in and spend their money at your business, here is a tool that you can use to improve your accessibility. So go and check out BluePath and become a path finder and see if that interests you in a way to engage with us that way.
Okay, well, unfortunately, this concludes today''s ADA audio conference program. We realize that many of you may still have questions for our presenters and I apologize if you did not get a change to ask your question. Our contact information was one of those slides, so please feel free to connect with us. We are both at the Region 10 and the Region 3 ADA centers or please call your local ADA center, 1-800-949-4232. I would like to present our--we would like to thank Don and Sara for their presentations today. I think it sounds like you have learned a lot from the program and I hope that you will act on it. A reminder that the digital recording today''s session as well as a written transcript will be available for viewing and download on the ADA-Audio website within the next business days--ten business days. Please join us for the next session. You will see it up on the screen. ADA Case Law and the new 2011-2012 schedule will be up shortly. We look forward to having you join us for next series of sessions. And please have a good day.