China investigates hygiene scandals in five-star hotels

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Chinese officials in Beijing and Shanghai are conducting hotel inspections after shocking hidden camera footage revealed that cleaning staff at several highbrow hotel franchises had wiped cups with unclean towels used by customers.

Authorities in the Chinese capital launched on-site inspections on Thursday at four hotels involved in the scandal, while regulators in Shanghai say that violators will be punished if wrongdoing is confirmed.

A user on Chinese social media kicked off this frenzy after posting a recording online on Wednesday evening showing these unsavory incidents in what he claimed was 14 out of the 147 five-star and luxury hotel branches he had stayed in for the past six years.

"The problem has long existed in nearly 100 percent of hotels around the country," he wrote on his Weibo account. "The real situation was worse than what the video has presented," he told The Paper.

The globally renowned brands that have been named and shamed in the video include Conrad, Park Hyatt, Four Seasons, Shangri-La, Bulgari, Le Royal Meridien, Aman, Ritz-Carlton, Mandarin Oriental, Sheraton, Waldorf Astoria, Peninsula and Puli.

Half of these hotels are located in Shanghai, while four are in Beijing and three in the cities of Fuzhou, Guiyang, and Nanchang.

As of 6 p.m. on Thursday, six of the hotels implicated in the video have made public apologies and promised to strengthen staff training and supervision.

This is not the first time that well-known hotels have failed basic hygiene checks in China. In December 2017, members of custodial staff at the luxury hotels of Sheraton, Shangri-La and Kempinski were filmed using the same brush to clean toilets, wash basins and even crockery.