Malaysia: Interview with Florence Leong, One World Hotel, Petaling Jaya

I said I chose to stay the One World Hotel and while I was there, I thought I’d ask some questions and Florence Leong, the Assistant  Director of Communications, was kind enough to have coffee with me and answer some questions.

Florence Leong

My first question was on the policy of the hotel on their disabled guests with its one accessible room. Florence said they do not have a policy as such – the hotel caters mostly to business clients with a small percentage of leisure travelers and the availability of the accessible room is on request basis.

Having an accessible room is part of the because of a legal requirements for four star above rating by the Ministry of Tourism in Malaysia – along with leisure facilities (the hotel has a swimming pool, a spa and tennis courts) and a signature restaurant.

They do not promote the fact that they have an accessible room. They have not really looked into the possibilities.

“I have read an article that included older customers as important source for the hotel industry but as One World Hotel is only in its 3rd year of operations, we have yet to build up that market sector. we are quite new and we are still building up our business,” Florence told me. They do not belong to a chain but is part of Bandar Utama City Sdn Bhd and considered as a business hotel.

“We have not had much demand from disabled customers,” she said. “How would you know if they do not know about the existence of the availability of the room?” I asked. We have regular updates from our front line staff and reception she informed me.

We went on to discuss about the accessible room, with it s roll in shower, which is  comfortably spacious but that I was concerned about the marble type floor which made the floor very slippery especially when it is wet. But the staff was efficient enough to turn up with a floor mat which they laid on the bathroom and they changed it when I asked them to. I asked Florence about the possibility of having an anti slip flooring, and from there, we moved onto accessible hotel rooms.

hotel bathroom with floor mat

She asked me for tips to improve the accessibility and I told her that the accessible toilets in the hotel were badly designed which virtually rendered them inaccessible by the wrong positioning of grab bars.

Apart from access for guests with mobility impairments/needs we also spoke of the need for colour contrasts for people with visual impairments and the need for them to install hearing loops for guests with hearing impairments.

It was a pleasant conversation with Florence and I am sure her disability awareness improved but I am not convinced disabled guests went up in her priority list.

Mary Chen, of the Challenges Magazine, told me that people are always asking her for figures of disabled travellers and that this type of data is difficult to come by. And until the hotel service industry thinks they have a potential for more business, I do not think that accessible hotel rooms will be any more than a token gesture.