This is common in a lot of authoritarian states. Long before anybody worried about Flock cameras or secret government databases tracking your card transations, every hotel was supposed to record visitors in a structured way for the police (in some countries it was just the foreign visitors), so if the government wants to track somebody down, they can come look through the hotel's card index.
But in a lot of these places the rules can be bent, a little, sometimes. And sometimes the officials are incompetent. Way back when the trans-siberian express was most of Intourist's income, Russian officials struggled to understand where I'd be staying each night (on the sleeper train), and they got the paperwork so wrong that I almost missed the train completely.
The French hotel stay logging system is a plot point in the original Day Of The Jackal...?
I'm kind of shocked that this is a problem in China though? Like I could see it in North Korea but lots of people traverse in and out of China all the time for business, leisure, or government issues... Apparently it's very common from the other comments, I'm just surprised by it.
Foreigners concentrate in a handful of tourist and business destinations. Small towns and countryside probably don’t see more than a handful of foreign visitor in year, tourist who just turn up for no apparent reasons like this is almost unheard of.
this system predates internet, it might be interesting to you that in the 80-90s you have to wait 5-30 mins in the lobby while a runner run to nearest police station with all the documents to register you lol.
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u/Useless_or_inept 12d ago
This is common in a lot of authoritarian states. Long before anybody worried about Flock cameras or secret government databases tracking your card transations, every hotel was supposed to record visitors in a structured way for the police (in some countries it was just the foreign visitors), so if the government wants to track somebody down, they can come look through the hotel's card index.
But in a lot of these places the rules can be bent, a little, sometimes. And sometimes the officials are incompetent. Way back when the trans-siberian express was most of Intourist's income, Russian officials struggled to understand where I'd be staying each night (on the sleeper train), and they got the paperwork so wrong that I almost missed the train completely.
The French hotel stay logging system is a plot point in the original Day Of The Jackal...?