KUALA LUMPUR: Only 14% of hotels in Malaysia are accessible to disabled people, while neighbouring Singapore has the most disabled-friendly hotels in Asia at 40%, according to a study by hotel booking site Agoda.com.

The study, which looked at information provided by more than 600,000 hotels available on the site, found that hotels in the United States are by far the most disabled-friendly in the world.

“The United States has the highest percentage of accessible hotels for disabled people at 77%, while Laos has the lowest at 1%. The study also found that only 14% of Malaysian hotels were friendly towards them,” said Agoda.com in a statement.

In second place were the United Arab Emirates, Ireland and Portugal, with 55% of hotels in each of the countries offering facilities for guests with disabilities, followed by New Zealand (54%), Mauritius (53%), Italy (52%), Puerto Rico (51%) and France (47%)

While no Asian country made the top-10 list, Singapore was the highest-ranking country in the region, in 18th place overall with 40% of its hotels disabled-friendly.

“Many factors determine whether hotels have accessible facilities, including local laws and regulations, and the type of visitors who come to the destination,” said Agoda.com.

“United Arab Emirates, for example, has seen a more than decade-long building boom resulting in many newly built hotels, which are more likely to be accessible. In the capital, Abu Dhabi, 90% of the hotels have facilities for disabled people.”

Meanwhile, five of the 10 destinations at the bottom of the list came from the Asian region, the website said.

The 10 countries with the lowest number of accessible accommodations were Uruguay (10%), Vietnam (9%), Nepal (8%), Thailand (8%), Azerbaijan (8%), Cambodia (8%), Bolivia (8%), Georgia (8%), Montenegro (7%) and Laos (1%).

Agoda.com said the study included only countries with more than 100 hotels listed on its site, with the data provided by the hotels. — The Malaysian Insider

This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily, on April 2, 2015.