Please help with a pronunciation problem. We stayed at the Shangri-La Rasa Ria Hotel in Borneo and the Shangri-La in Kuala Lumpur. I believe this chain is named after a classic novel and always thought the pronunciation was "shangrilaah", however a colleague insists it is "shangreela", what do you think? Audrey Simpson, Keighley

Sunday Times travel expert, Richard Green, responds: It was James Hilton who popularized the term Shangri-La, using it as the name for a mystical Himalayan community in his 1933 novel, Lost Horizons. Since then it has become synonymous with an earthly utopia or personal paradise.

The real location of the original Shangri-La is hotly disputed, with contenders in Sichuan, Tibet, and the Hunza Valley in Pakistan. Zhongdian in China even changed its name to Shangri-La in 2003 to try to lure in tourist business. The locations of the Shangri-La hotels are easier to pinpoint though - there are now 50 of them across the Far East and Middle East.

So much for where the name comes from, but how on earth is it pronounced?

To find out, I called the Shangri-La hotel in Hong Kong, where the group is based. The receptionist politely answered, “Good evening, Hong Kong Shangri-La, how may I help you?” And the pronunciation was with a short ‘I’, and a short ‘A’ on the La.

Just to make sure I called Beijing, and got the same response; and the same in Kuala Lumpur, and Delhi too. Surely Sydneysiders, with their famously long vowels might say it "shangreelaah" I thought, but no, the same there too. In the end, I called 10 hotels, and each front desk answered with exactly the same pronunciation - even super laid-back lilt of Borocay Island in the Philippines was bang on cue.

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