Beijing officials have initiated a city-wide investigation after a scandal has implicated a number of local five-star hotels for lax hygiene standards.

The Beijing Health and Family Planning Commission announced Tuesday that they will investigate all five-star hotels in the city a day after an undercover report revealed local luxury hotels didn't clean their guest room, reusing bed linen and not cleaning their toilets.

On Monday, Blueberry Review published the results of a sting operation (video here) on Beijing's upper-tier hospitality industry. Equipped with hidden cameras, Blueberry investigators booked rooms at five luxury Beijing hotels, inside which they secretly planted invisible ink stamps on bed linen, pillows, cups, toilets, and bathtubs. The investigators then messed up the beds to simulate using them, then left the rooms.

These same stamps were discovered the next day by another investigator who booked the same hotel room using hotel reservation apps. Easily washed away with water, Blueberry concluded that these personal items had not been replaced or cleaned and that the hotels had allowed new guests to use dirty facilities.

The five luxury hotels implicated in the Blueberry Review undercover report are: the W Beijing Chang'an, the Hilton Beijing, the Intercontinental Hotel (Beijing Sanlitun), the JW Marriott (Beijing), and the Shangri-La Hotel (Beijing).

The W, the Hilton, and the Intercontinental were named as the most serious violators for not changing all of their bed sheets, quilt covers, and pillow cases.

The Marriott and the Shangri-La were found to have changed their bed sheets and quilt covers, but neglected to change pillow cases (four and one, respectively).

None of the hotels were found to have cleaned bathtubs or toilet seats in the tested rooms.

According to the video, Blueberry Review admitted they were "stunned" by the results, stating: "We've seen messes of different industries in our tests. However, none of them has shocked us like this."

In light of oncoming city investigations, four of the hotels have announced they will conduct internal investigations in a list that includes the Shangri-La, the Hilton the W, and the JW Marriott.

Chinese public hygiene regulations demand hotel operators adhere to a "one customer, one-time use" policy in which facilities are freshly cleaned for every new client. Additionally, Chinese hospitality regulations say bed linen and pillows must be changed for each customer.

Serendipitously, the Beijing Health and Family Planning Commission released its summer inspection report on the city's 691 hotels just one day after the scandal broke. Forty-six Beijing hotels failed to meet city standards, 35 of which were punished.

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E-mail: charlesliu1@qq.com

Images: Sina Video