WATCH: China Shuts Down Marriot’s Website

As punishment for listing Chinese-claimed regions Tibet, Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan as countries in a recent Mandarin-language customer survey sent to Marriott loyalty members. Marriott’s Chinese website and mobile app are being shut down temporarily at the request of Chinese government officials in Shanghai. The shutdown of Marriott’s Chinese website and app has a direct impact on the company’s ability to gather bookings from the world’s largest travel market, Chinese consumers in particular, rely heavily on mobile applications to do all of their commercial transactions, including booking travel.

An investigation into the incident is also being launched by local Shanghainese authorities as a possible violation of China’s cybersecurity and advertisement laws. Marriott has not yet said how this shutdown or the pending investigation could impact its future business in China. This apology was tweeted by the company on its Marriott Rewards Twitter account on January 11, 2018.