Concerned about the poor maintenance and service standards of the hospitality industry, the Ministry of Tourism, Arts and Culture Malaysia called on hotels to upgrade their assets, raise the assessment level of environmental cleanliness and sanitation, as well as to improve their service quality.
Its minister, Tiong King Siong, shared that from January to April, the ministry had received many more hotel-related complaints from tourists, as compared to only three complaints last year, all related to hotel service standards.
Complaints received included guests being disillusioned by advertising which do not reflect the reality of the premises, poor maintenance of the hotel properties, and poor services rendered by hotel staff.
Tiong said this in his speech to hoteliers prior to launching the inaugural Hospitality Leadership Conference organised by Malaysian Association of Hotels on May 25.
He shared that he will propose to prime minister Anwar Ibrahim, who is also the finance minister, to inject funds into commercial banks so that hoteliers can get low interest loans to carry out their hotel upgrades.
To address the issue of hoteliers being unable to secure loans, he has also urged commercial banks to relax their loan terms.
Tiong stressed that the ministry was taking all complaints related to the hospitality industry seriously and stated that the ministry will even go as far as to downgrade the hotel rating for hotels that fail to meet expectations.
Editor’s note: In the original post, the headline stated the upgrading was mandatory. This is not the case – hotels in Malaysia are highly recommended by the government to undergo upgrading. The headline has been corrected.
