Shanghai closes Marriott's website and app in China

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The Shanghai Cyberspace Administration on Thursday closed down the official Chinese website and the smartphone app of Marriott International Inc. for a week, over the hotel chain’s listing Chinese regions including Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan and Tibet as “countries” in a customer questionnaire.

The Shanghai authorities urged the group to “start a thorough self-inspection, remove the law-violating information and publish the investigation result and measures to the public”.

Shanghai’s Huangpu District market supervision bureau has launched an investigation into Marriott for violating the country’s cybersecurity law and advertisement law.

Screenshot of a statement issued by the National Tourism Administration. /CGTN Photo

In a recent customer questionnaire sent to its members through email, the world’s biggest hotel chain listed Chinese regions Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan and Tibet as “countries”, triggering widespread outrage among the Chinese netizens on Sina Weibo, China’s answer to Twitter.

The National Tourism Administration of China issued an official statement Thursday, urging the Shanghai Tourism Bureau to conduct an investigation as soon as possible. It also asked all local tourism bureaus to check the hotels’ online websites and applications, in order to prevent such incident from happening again.

The group issued an apology on its official @MarriottRewards Weibo account on Tuesday, saying that they had suspended all the questionnaires, and amended the options.

A Marriott hotel in Hangzhou City, Zhejiang Province. /VCG Photo

However, Marriott’s members revealed that soon after it published the apologizing letter on the Weibo account, the hotel chain’s Twitter account liked a tweet that supported “Tibet independence”.

The double-tongued behaviors of the group re-ignited Chinese social media and Chinese people took to social media, calling for a boycott against the hotel chain. Many of its members said they have already canceled their bookings with the hotel chain.

Screenshot of Marriott's apology on Twitter. /CGTN Photo‍

The Weibo account @MarriottRewards issued three other apologies between Wednesday morning and Thursday, emphasizing that “Marriott International respects Chinese sovereignty and its territorial integrity”, and that they “sincerely apologize for any actions that led to misunderstanding on the aforementioned stance”.

Its Twitter account issued the same apology in English, however, it remains unclear whether Marriott can win back the hearts of its Chinese customers.

In its official statement, the Shanghai Cyberspace Administration said its following decisions would be made in accordance to Marriott’s responses.