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China has been encouraging international travellers to return home for the past year, and last month it took the extraordinary step of asking hotels to stop refusing entry to travelers.
Foreigners are rarely turned away from hotels in China’s larger cities, but outside the big cities they remain at risk, as I experienced during a recent visit to Changsha, the capital of Hunan province.
In most cases, hotels claim that they are not eligible to accommodate international guests. A central government notification explicitly prohibits hotels from refusing guests on such grounds. So why is this practice happening?
Part of the answer lies in Chinese history: When China reopened to the world in 1987, it introduced “hotel industry safety management” measures that required details of international guests to be submitted to authorities.
Ken Jarrett, a former U.S. consul general in Shanghai, arrived in the city in 1979, at a time when there were restrictions on where foreigners could stay. He recalls having to ask for a “foreigner hotel” and seeing hordes of Chinese people gathering outside Shanghai’s famous Peace Hotel, trying to find out what was going on inside the hotel.
One reason hotels are now turning away foreign guests is because of the system that was in place back then, but it’s hard to pinpoint clear signs that specific qualifications are required. Senior tourism and hospitality economist Zhao Huanyan said hotels cite the qualification requirements as an “excuse” when in reality they may lack the training or language skills to accommodate foreigners.
Under government regulations from the 1980s, hotels are required to scan the ID cards of foreign travelers upon check-in. The information is then passed on to the local Public Security Bureau (PSB). In post-Maoist China, the political climate would have been very sensitive to the presence of foreigners. Political tensions with the US may be the reason why such a practice continues.
Hotels also require guests to register their Chinese identity cards, and according to staff, these details are also sent to the PSB. In some regions, such as Hunan, local regulations confirm this. The PSB will impose fines if the hotel enters the information incorrectly. Therefore, foreigners, having their own documents, may not be subject to discrimination, but rather be an administrative risk for hotels (although there have been reports of discrimination occurring during the COVID-19 pandemic).
China’s practice of strict scrutiny of its guests dates back to the recent Communist era. Over 2,000 years ago in China during the Qin Dynasty, the reformer Shang Yang, who insisted on strict rules, wanted to stay at an inn while on the run after his political fortunes changed. The innkeeper cited the fugitive’s own rules and told him he could not stay unless he registered his real name. “So is the law,” Shang Yang lamented. “The law is corrupt.” Shang Yang was then torn to pieces by a tank.
In recent years, hotels have emerged as central to China’s local infrastructure, closely intertwined with the government and often built on a grand scale. For as long as it took a country to get its citizens to travel, hotels are a vital part of the state’s security apparatus, behemoths that are rarely seen above ground.
The refusal of foreigners to stay may simply be an unintended consequence of the country’s system, but it’s difficult to completely rule out the possibility that local authorities are stepping in behind the scenes to regulate certain establishments. China’s history may help shed light on the reasons why hotels refuse foreigners, but the system China has created makes it difficult to ascertain the exact causes.
Back in Shanghai, I stopped into a boutique hotel to double-check whether they’d accept an international friend. The answer was yes. The receptionist felt that any hotel that would refuse to accommodate someone didn’t have the right qualifications, but she wasn’t sure about the exact details of those qualifications or the rules. “There are so many departments,” she said, gesturing around. “I’m sure someone here knows someone.”
Additional reporting by reporter Ding Wenjie in Beijing
thomas.hale@ft.com
