Open Your Doors Survey: Key Results

• 52% of guide dog owners have been refused entry to a service in the last five years. Two in five guide dog owners (39%) have been turned away by a restaurant.
• One in ten hotels state they are not able to accommodate visually impaired people at any time.
• 10% of restaurants say they cannot allow, or will only allow restricted access, to guide dog owners.
• 40% of guide dog owners say they have had a particularly good experience in one of the services.
• 12% of businesses surveyed said they did not understand their legal obligations under the Disability Discrimination Act, (1), which makes it unlawful to treat disabled people less favourably than other people for a reason related to their disability.
• 50% of service providers, and seven out of ten restaurants, have concerns about accepting guide dogs.

The research can be broken down regionally for London, Leeds, Birmingham, Manchester, Glasgow, Bristol, Cardiff and Belfast.

For further regional information, please phone
Chris Dyson in Guide Dogs' Press Office on 0118 983 8281 or 8224.

Notes:

Research carried out with 400 businesses and 100 guide dog owners by Buckingham Research Associates, September 2004.

The Open Your Doors campaign coincides with new rights for disabled people under the Disability Discrimination Act, which from October 2004 will require service providers to make 'reasonable adjustments' to their premises. They will need to ensure that there are no physical barriers stopping or making it unreasonably difficult for guide dog owners, and other blind and partially sighted customers, to use their services.