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.

Malaysia: Preparation before the trip

I was born and bred in Malaysia so I do know the terrain. In my previous trips, I had gone before with my family (ex and kids) but had not considered the need for an electric wheelchair before.

However nowadays, my upper body strength is much reduced as has my mobility so this trip needed some careful planning.

In the next few blog entries, I plan to write about some of the preparation/considerations/research needed before the trip if a disabled /reduced mobility traveller wishes to go to Malaysia.

First of all, why visit Malaysia?

The people are warm and friendly, the equatorial landscape is very green and luxurious . The mixture of all the different cultures cheek by jowl makes Malaysia a compelling experience. The food from the exchange of cultures surpasses any to be found anywhere else on earth. And it has all the amenities of modern life without the being sanitised as its neighbour, Singapore.

There are many reasons why one should visit Malaysia but until it improves its access for disabled visitors, visiting the country remains a challenge. For those who want to rise to the challenge, here are a few considerations-

Accommodation

Most people start with Kuala Lumpur – the capital. This is where your plane lands at KLIA (Kuala Lumpur International Airport). KLIA is a great airport – I ve always found it to be efficient and the staff to be accommodating and helpful. Getting out of the airport is another matter – this I will write about under transport.

I chose to make Kuala Lumpur or the connecting suburb, Petaling Jaya (PJ) as my base. Most of my friends and family live there and there are many hotels which are most likely to have wheelchair accessible rooms to choose from.

Part of Kuala Lumpur skyline

My own decision to go to PJ is also based on the fact that I did not want to be in downtown congested KL. But for those who want to be close to tourist spots, there are the 4**** hotels around Bukit Bintang (KL shopping and entertainment district ) – these hotels will have at least one wheelchair accessible room. I was reliably told that to obtain the 4 **** rating, the hotel would had to have at least one wheelchair accessible room. I must admit that I really like the look of eco friendly, courtyard boutique Peranakan themed Anggun Kuala Lumpur. It said it had “disabled- and senior citizen-friendly rooms” on its website. That might be so but the surrounding city scape is not so wheelchair friendly. If I was a tourist and my intentions are to sample the high life of KL – Bukit Bintang is the place to aim for. But Petaling Jaya is not that far away and taxis are quite plentiful.

So, first question in deciding where to stay is : the main purpose of your visit and what are your resources?

Unless someone informs me to the contrary, I would say that there is very little budget type  accommodation that is cheap and accessible such as hostels etc and the like in Malaysia.

I needed a good location where friends and relatives can get to me easily. The whole area can be a motorist nightmare with traffic jams all the time especially during a downpour (which can happen every afternoon). I needed an accessible hotel attached to a mall with easily reached restaurants and shops. I did not fancy humping up and down pavements on my own.  I asked friends and relatives to do some research for me. I should mention that Mary Chen (Editor of “Challenges Magazine“) and Peter Tan gave me some suggestions. Peter kindly checked out the accessible room at the Boulevard Hotel, Mid Valley Megamall for me. So the search narrowed down to Boulevard Hotel and the One World Hotel, 1 Utama Mall. These are both hotels attached conveniently to a big mall.

My needs: a base from which I can independently negotiate my self propelled wheelchair and go to shops, restaurants and other amenities without having to stay within the hotel all the time. This would have to be a place where friends and family can come join me for dinner for the evening without battling over traffic.

It was location which won – apparently Megamall can have incredible traffic snarl ups.

Transport

Transport or lack of accessible transport was a determining factor in the type of wheelchair I took to Malaysia and the support I needed in getting around.

First of all, there is no reliable accessible public transport in Malaysia. And no accessible taxis. One reason why I did not take my electric wheelchair. I understand the light rail transit(LTR)  is accessible but it is only along certain routes but you have to get there first.

KL Traffic

I was also told about Persatuan Mobiliti which has some vans which are accessible for wheelchair users (with hydraulic lifts and wheelchair restraints) and if there is availability, can be booked for use by non Malaysian residents. I do not think this is very practical for main mode of transport for a visitor. Besides it will definitely be unable to move out of the city.

I find taxis the easiest form of transport but you would still have to avoid the busy areas because taxi drivers will not go where they think they will be stuck in traffic. But to travel out of KL for trips there are taxis which will give you a tour price. We took one of those to Melaka about 2 hours drive from KL south, a city with heritage and a certain colonial past, Portuguese, Dutch and British. It cost us about MYR250/US$75/ GBP £51 each with the taxi to ourselves  for the whole day with lunch included. Taxis can be booked from the hotel from the concierge. We also had a taxi booked to take us to Teluk Intan.

Environmental access

Storm drain

I know some wheelchair users are really good at manoeuvring their wheelchairs but I am not. Negotiating Malaysia buildings and pavements/sidewalks is a real challenge even with a strong and experienced wheelchair pusher. Curb cuts are random and few and far between. Malaysia passed its Uniform Building Bylaws and amended it in 1990 making it compulsory for buildings to provide access to enable disabled persons to get into, out of and within the buildings. The accessibility is still very haphazard. One of the reasons is the prevalence of monsoon drains built to allow water to flow away fast in the flash floods when there is a torrential downpour.

However, in the smaller towns, you can go along on the streets reasonably safely with a wheelchair.

Many buildings have lifts when there are stairs especially in the shopping centres. I did have a surprise in Sungai Wang Plaza when we could’nt use a lift because there was a pole in the middle of the lift, apparently it was to stop shoppers from taking shopping carts into the lifts rendering them unusable for wheelchair users.

Accessible Toilets

Finding accessible toilets is always an issue for wheelchair users. And even the designated accessible toilet may not be so accessible. But in most malls and modern shopping centres, hotels, they do have toilet which are bigger with hand rails. I did find an accessible toilet with handrails next to the sink instead of the toilet which made transfer very hazardous especially when more often or not, toilets are wet in Malaysia.

what design is this?

It might sound very daunting but with the right support, a trip or stopover in Malaysia is well worth the trip. I will be writing about some of the places I did go and visit but I ‘ll leave this for the next blog instalment.

Photos of my trip this time is at Connect Culture flickr account , (Malaysia set /, Kuala Lumpur set, and Melaka set.)