MELAKA: Caring for their pets during the ‘balik kampung’ period come Adilfitri, cat owners are in a quandary on where to leave their pets.
The number of cat hotels in the state is limited, causing cat lovers to make early reservations to ensure their pets receive proper care when they return to their hometowns.
Understanding the difficulties, ‘Hotel For Cat’ owner, Akram Azly, 35, decided to open a cat hotel in Krubong in 2011 before moving to Taman Ayer Keroh Height, Ayer Keroh in 2014.
“I started keeping a cat named ‘Tiger’ while studying at Multimedia University (MMU), Ayer Keroh campus and I had to sacrifice my holidays to look after Tiger every semester break,” he told Bernama.
At the same time, Akram said he and his wife Izawah Kamal, 34, volunteered to take care of their friends’ cats, when they went on vacation, without charging any fees because they loved these pets.
He said at that time there was a kindly cat owner who offered cat necessities like cat food and cat litter sand as gifts to him.
“From that moment onwards I and my wife got the idea to offer a part time cat-caring service with a fee as low as RM2 to serve as pocket money,” he said.
The native of Kota Baharu, Kelantan, said he became serious about the business and registered it in 2011 after graduating from MMU.
The Information Technology (Hons) (Artificial Intelligence) Bachelor’s degree graduate said that starting from that moment, he started a cat hotel business and sold various types of food, care items, accessories, in addition to grooming.
He also sells imported cats from foreign countries such as Ukraine and Russia if there is demand from customers.
Akram said that to date ‘Hotel For Cat’ had a total of 60 rooms for the cats and he planned to expand his business in the near future.
“I intend to expand the ‘Hotel For Cat’ as a one-stop centre which offers a variety of services and caters for the needs of cats,” he said.
Meanwhile, Akram said reservations at his cat hotel for Aidilfitri has been fully booked since the beginning of Ramadan.
Akram said the charges were around RM8 per day for kittens and around RM36 per day for apartment type rooms for three cats excluding food and cat litter sand. – Bernama
