In April 2025, the Uyghur Human Rights Project (UHRP) released a deeply disturbing report titled It Does Matter Where You Stay: International Hotel Chains in East Turkistan. Authored by Peter Irwin, Dr. Henryk Szadziewski, and Ben Carrdus, the report reveals a staggering truth: major international hotel chains are not only operating in China’s Uyghur Region amid a recognized genocide—they are expanding.
Chains including Hilton, Marriott, IHG, Wyndham, and Accor collectively run at least 115 hotels in East Turkistan (Xinjiang), with another 74 under construction or in planning, bringing the total to nearly 190. These luxury developments stand in sharp contrast to the horrifying reality of Uyghur life: mass surveillance, forced labor, systematic cultural erasure, and the internment of over a million people in so-called "reeducation" camps.
“It’s unconscionable that these hotel chains continue to operate and expand in the Uyghur Region at a time when the Chinese government is carrying out systematic atrocities,” said Peter Irwin, co-author of the report. “Their presence alone normalizes and legitimizes these abuses.”
Operating on the Ruins of Faith and Freedom
Among the most egregious examples, Hilton, through a franchisee, built a Hampton by Hilton hotel on the site of a demolished mosque in Khotan. The mosque was one of more than 10,000 destroyed under a government campaign aimed at eradicating Uyghur religious life. Despite global outcry and a U.S. Congressional inquiry, the hotel opened in 2024.
Other hotel chains are just as entangled. Accor is linked to Uyghur forced labor through a franchisee involved in China’s coercive "labor transfer" programs. Their Chinese partner, H World Group, has actively participated in the “Xinjiang Aid” program—another vehicle for state-led forced assimilation.
Hilton, IHG, and Wyndham operate hotels in areas controlled by the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps (XPCC)—a paramilitary corporate entity sanctioned by the U.S., UK, EU, and Canada for grave human rights violations.
These operations aren’t merely neutral business ventures. They are deeply embedded in state propaganda, economic exploitation, and cultural erasure. By providing accommodations and conference venues, hotel chains are indirectly facilitating government narratives that whitewash abuses and promote East Turkistan as a tourist destination, while Uyghur families are torn apart, their identities systematically dismantled.
Violating Global Standards
The UHRP report outlines that hotel chains may be violating:
-
The UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights
-
The OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises
-
ILO Conventions on Forced Labor (C29 and C105)
Furthermore, third-party platforms like Booking.com, Expedia, and Tripadvisor continue to list hotels in the region, essentially helping promote destinations built on oppression and silence.
A Call to Action
The presence of these hotel chains in the Uyghur Region is not a passive act—it is a choice. And that choice directly supports a political and economic system committing crimes against humanity.
UHRP and human rights advocates call on:
-
Hotel chains to freeze all expansion, halt operations, and disclose exit strategies
-
Third-party booking platforms to delist all properties in the region and conduct full due diligence
-
Governments to investigate potential sanctions violations, especially in relation to the XPCC
“By helping to portray the region as a normal travel destination,” said Dr. Henryk Szadziewski of UHRP, “international hotel chains risk enabling the ongoing persecution of the Uyghur people.”
Tourism should not come at the cost of human dignity. Luxury should not be built on loss. The next time you check in, ask yourself: What are you checking into?
If you want to help No Business With Genocide fight the #UyghurGenocide, click here.
