Handicap-friendly hotel rooms planned

Prince Sultan bin Salman, president of the Saudi Commission for Tourism and Antiquities (SCTA), has disclosed plans to allocate a number of rooms in the Kingdom’s hotels for the handicapped with special facilities in accordance with international regulations and specifications.
“We have launched a program to make hotels, furnished apartments, parks and service centers handicapped-friendly to help people of special needs access facilities without difficulty,” he said.
Prince Sultan described the Prince Salman Center for Disability Research (PSCDR) as one of the leading centers in the world that works with international hospitals to improve the quality of life of people with disabilities by providing them with better treatment and services.
“We also work to reduce and avoid disabilities through early diagnosis,” said Prince Sultan, chairman of PSCDR’s board of trustees. He praised Al-Anoud Charitable Foundation for its support to people with hearing disabilities. “We cooperate with Al-Anoud in this area,” he said.
Al-Anoud, he said, has launched two initiatives, one of which is a sign language training center and the other a translation center that will help people with hearing impairment get quick translation when they go to different places.
“There are about 700,000 people in the Kingdom with hearing difficulty. They need these kinds of services,” he said, adding that most of them cannot read.
The founders of PSCDR held a meeting in Madinah recently, which was attended by Madinah Gov. Prince Faisal bin Salman. The meeting saw the launch of a high diploma program for sign language.