HOTELS offer rooms to provide guests with privacy and amenities. For most travellers, they are just a place to sleep in comfort and safety.
Whether on leisure or business, visitors usually leave the hotel after breakfast unless they are attending a meeting or convention held at the same hotel.
Most room guests would not make their way back to the hotel just to have lunch as many options are available near wherever they may be, and similarly for dinner, except for those who find it inconvenient or unsafe to be out after dark.
Another exception is tourists on staycation. Those who can afford may travel long distances to escape from frigid winters. When I was overseeing the Kuantan branch of a tour company in the mid-1980s, I noticed there were many German guests staying at a beach hotel.
For two weeks, they hardly did anything other than sit next to the swimming pool or beach to relax and recharge their batteries, unlike many who travel overseas for sightseeing and shopping. After running around like crazy, they may need a rest to recover from a hectic trip.
Few people realise that the Federal Territory of Putrajaya is surrounded by the district of Sepang, where its north-eastern part is very close to Kuala Lumpur city centre.
In this suburb, many tracts of land are still affordable and ideal to build a low-rise resort hotel spread over a large area.
The hotel will consist of four blocks built on all four sides of a very large square piece of land measuring about two acres with a huge central courtyard, which will be the main attraction, as it will be planted with the most interesting and colourful vegetation and be a feast for the eyes.
The enclosed courtyard will also allow guests to enjoy activities in safety and security, comfort and convenience, attracting not only foreign tourists but also local residents for a great staycation.
The pièce de resistance would be a paddy field in the centre and guests can participate in planting the rice seedlings into the water-covered mud or harvesting with a sickle when ripe.
After threshing to separate from the stalks, the grains can be milled in-house using a cheap portable milling machine. The organic rice would be cooked and served to guests who will lap up every grain, treasuring the efforts they have made.
The colour of young paddy plants in a rice field under the sun is the most vibrant and freshest green one can ever see and will warm the cockles of the heart.
Fish such as carp and catfish can be cultivated and guests may throw them fish feed supplied by the hotel and marvel at their size.
A section of the courtyard can feature an assortment of plants with giant leaves, making it a sort of Jurassic Park but without man-made dinosaurs. In any case, wild vegetation including weeds can be more authentic than commercialised flowers and plants that are commonly seen.
The courtyard would include a slope planted with Japanese Roses. When grown closely together and in full bloom, it is truly a sight to behold.
It was the most colourful thing I have ever seen in the compound of a house when I was a child and I later started to dream in colours.
Common weeds can also be elevated to take a lofty position as a wonder of nature and this reminds me of a training course I conducted at the auditorium of the Tourism, Arts and Culture Ministry office complex in Ayer Keroh, Melaka in 2013.
One of the participants was from the Mimosa Hotel but she did not know the hotel was named after a plant, which is one of the few that can move, similar to a Venus flytrap only less dramatic. When shaken, the leaves close quickly and it is commonly known as touch-me-not.
The flower is small but beautiful. If grown in pots or troughs and with fertilizer added, mimosa pudica or other weeds can grow much larger and pretty to look at.
The hotel can use high-definition cameras to take close-up videos of these flowers and plants and they can be projected on the walls of the lobby, informing guests that these images can be viewed live just outside the building.
The resort will also be the perfect venue for a grand garden wedding and guests can come from around the country and all over the world and be housed in the hotel. For sure, no one needs to drive home drunk after the wedding dinner.
The hotel can be called Paddy Fields, Green Acre, Tropical Paradise or any other name that could easily be remembered globally, whereas choosing Mutiara is meaningful only to those who understand the Malay word and difficult to remember by others.
Guests at this resort hotel can easily reach the city centre by using a free shuttle throughout the day and the large passenger vans used would act as a mobile billboard.
This hotel would have a heart and soul and not just a place to sleep. It would provide the most memorable experiences for guests and many would return.
As they offer free consultancy, their proposals would be entertained, tweaked and implemented to ensure continuous improvements. – Nov 1, 2024
YS Chan is master trainer for Mesra Malaysia and Travel and Tours Enhancement Course and an Asean Tourism Master Trainer. He is also a tourism and transport business consultant.
The views expressed are solely of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Focus Malaysia.
Main image: Pexels/Azri Suratmin
