Shanghai hotels ignore condoms plea
SHANGHAI – – Attempts by the local authorities to force hotels to stock condoms as part of an AIDS awareness campaign are falling on deaf ears.
Shanghai Municipal Commission of Population and Family Planning instructed district governments to send out condoms to be distributed at venues such as hotels and entertainment spots.
China Daily reports that as many as 40 per cent of the condoms sent out in Pudong have been refused or not offered to guests.
A spokeswoman for the Shanghai InterContinental Hotel explained, “We never provide or sell condoms in our hotel. We must comply with a uniform standard set by our company to arrange the layout of rooms in the hotel.
“Our hotel hasn’t received any circular released by Shanghai Municipal Commission of Population and Family Planning.”
For some hotels and entertainment venues, condoms are considered too private and personal an issue.
A woman, who asked not to be named, working at the guest room department of the five-star Okura Garden Hotel Shanghai said, “We only provide life necessities in our hotels, and condoms are something relating to privacy.
“If customers need them, they can bring condoms themselves, and it is very convenient to buy them at supermarkets and drugstores throughout the city.”
Fan Jincheng, deputy director of the Social Development Bureau of Pudong New Area, admitted there was a problem with hotels stocking condoms.
He told China Daily, “Among the 200 hotels above the level of three stars, only 10 to 20 of them have agreed to install the condom vending machines sent by the government, and more than half of the hotels refuse to accept free condoms.”
In January 2006, the Chinese Government, along with WHO and UNAIDS (The Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS), estimated that 650,000 people were living with HIV in China, including about 75,000 AIDS patients.
Ian Jarrett
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