New hotel listens to deaf argument

A new Cape Town hotel has made an ingenious and counter-intuitive decision to employ deaf people, resulting in 30% of the staff being hard of hearing.

"You would think it's not going to work, and then you make it work," said Clinton Thom, general manager of Park Inn hotel in Newlands, Cape Town.

The hotel, opened in October, is built on the former grounds of the provincial office of DeafSA, its business partner.

A percentage of the profits of the hotel go to DeafSA, an association of deaf societies in South Africa.

"We're certainly not the first to employ deaf people, but it's always confined to admin. Here we have deaf people in every department."

For the project to succeed, the partners had to change "the way things work. There is an interpreter on site, and hearing and deaf staff are getting along well."

To facilitate communication, it offers sign language lessons.

"We've already started lessons in basic sign language. It's about little subtleties, like the importance of making sure there is enough light in the room before you communicate with a deaf person, and that a tap on the shoulder might frighten them."

Sharon Erasmus, a reservationist who has been hard of hearing since the age of three, said: "At first, I was very nervous. Hearing people must just have patience."