UHRP Investigation Reveals Startling Expansion of International Hotel Chains in the Uyghur Region

April 17, 2025 | 6:00 a.m. EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact: Peter Irwin +1 (646) 906-7722, Omer Kanat +1 (202) 790-1795

A new report by the Uyghur Human Rights Project (UHRP), authored by Peter Irwin, Dr. Henryk Szadziewski, and Ben Carrdus, reveals alarming evidence that major international hotel chains—Accor, Hilton, IHG, Marriott, and Wyndham—are operating and dramatically expanding their presence in East Turkistan despite ongoing crimes against humanity and genocide.

The report, It Does Matter Where You Stay: International Hotel Chains in East Turkistan, documents at least 115 hotels from major international hotel chains operating in the Uyghur Region as of April 2025. On top of current operational presence, international chains are on a building spree in the region, with at least another 74 hotels under construction or in planning stages, bringing the total to at least 189.

“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, Associate Director for Research and Advocacy at the Uyghur Human Rights Project, and co-author of the report. “There is absolutely no way these multibillion-dollar corporations can operate responsibly in this environment—their presence alone normalizes and legitimizes these abuses.”

The report includes several troubling findings:

• Three international hotel chains—Hilton, IHG, and Wyndham—are located in areas administered by the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps (XPCC), an entity under targeted sanctions by the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and the European Union, for its grave and systematic human rights violations.

• Hilton, through a franchisee, built a Hampton by Hilton hotel on the site of a demolished mosque in Khotan, following an extensive government campaign that left more than 10,000 mosques destroyed throughout the region. Despite international scrutiny, including an inquiry from the US Congress in 2021, the hotel opened for visitors in 2024.

• Accor has direct exposure to Uyghur forced labor through a franchisee involved in a coercive “labor transfer” program, as well as through its strategic partner in China, H World Group Limited, which has participated in “Xinjiang Aid” programs, indicating a high risk of forced labor.

• Ownership and management partnerships between these international hotel chains and Chinese state-linked companies raise further concerns over financial ties that support a government engaged in atrocity crimes.

• Hilton hotels in the region have hosted state propaganda events and promoted tourism sites that erase Uyghur cultural and religious identity.

• Third-party booking platforms, like Booking.com, Expedia, and Tripadvisor, list hotels in the Uyghur Region, indirectly supporting businesses complicit in human rights abuses and state repression.

• International hotel chains are continuing to expand with major luxury hotel projects, including Marriott’s Ritz-Carlton in Ürümchi, IHG’s InterContinental hotels in Ürümchi, Kashgar, and Ghulja, and Hilton’s Conrad resorts in Altay, which stand in sharp contrast to the lived realities of Uyghurs.

• The operations of hotel chains may violate key international standards, including the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises, and the International Labour Organization’s Forced Labour Conventions (C29 and C105).

“International hotel chains continue to operate and expand their hospitality businesses in a region where Uyghur families have been torn apart by internment, imprisonment, and forced labor,” said Dr. Henryk Szadziewski, co-author of the report and Director of Research at the Uyghur Human Rights Project.

“Uyghur communities suffer state-sponsored destruction of their religion, language, and cultural heritage. By helping to portray the region as a normal travel destination, international hotel chains risk enabling the ongoing persecution of the Uyghur people.”

Hotel chains operating in the Uyghur Region risk enabling and legitimizing the political and economic system that perpetuates forced labor, cultural erasure, and other human rights abuses targeting Uyghurs. By maintaining a presence in the region, they support the very apparatus of state control that enforces these atrocities.

International hotel chains must immediately freeze expansion in the Uyghur Region, halt all operations, and sever any business ties. They should publicly disclose their decision to exit, conduct heightened human rights due diligence, and engage with Uyghur rights organizations for remediation.

Third-party booking platforms should remove all hotel listings in the Uyghur Region and conduct due diligence on prior listings. Governments should investigate hotel chains and booking platforms for sanctions violations, particularly those linked to the XPCC, an entity sanctioned by the United States and other governments.