Association chairman: Most Sarawak hotels flexible with check-in, check-out times

MIRI (Sept 26): Most hotels in Sarawak are flexible when it comes to check-in and check-out times depending on the availability of rooms, said Malaysian Association of Hotels Sarawak Chapter (MAHSC) chairman John Teo.

He said although generally the check-in time is around 3pm, and check-out is 12pm, guests can negotiate with the receptionist, subject to room availability.

“We here are very flexible in this issue. As long as the hotel has available rooms when the guests arrive earlier than 3pm, we will still have our guests checked-in.

“Example, if a guest arrives at the hotel at 9am and we have available room, we will check the guest in (early),” he said when asked to comment on a recent viral social media post on late check-in time and early check-out time imposed by many hotels.

Teo explained that if the hotel rooms were fully booked the previous day however, the hotel would always try to check-in the guest as soon as the previous guest had checked out and the housekeeping staff had cleaned up the room.

“We will let the guests keep their luggage in our luggage room and have them come back once the room is ready for them.

“We will also get the guests’ contact number and call them when the room is ready,” he said.

For guests requesting to extend their stay past their check-out time, Teo said the hotel would normally extend until 2pm to 3pm.

“This request can be considered, as long as there are rooms available, or if the next guest is checking in much later due to their late arrival.

“Our guests here in Sarawak normally will understand this issue, give and take, as long as we explain to our guests politely and courteously,” he said.

Some netizens took to Facebook and TikTok to complain about check-in time as late as 4pm and check-out time as early as 11am imposed by some hotels in the country.

They also highlighted that these hotels were charging a full-day stay for a period of less than a day.

They pointed out further that such practice is bad for tourism and the short period also does not provide enough time for guests to enjoy all of the hotel’s facilities that they paid for.