“Whether you are eating, playing or sleeping, the polar bears will keep you company,” said Harbin Polarland’s official WeChat account in a March 11 post.
Photos and videos from Chinese state media showed people watching two polar bears in an enclosure covered with artificial ice and small pools of water.
Yang Liu, a spokesman for Harbin Polarland, told Reuters that the indoor area is only part of the bears’ total enclosure and that they can stay outdoors when the temperature and air quality allow.
She said interest in staying at the hotel, where rooms range from 1,888 to 2,288 yuan ($ 290.10 to $ 351.56) per night, was “very high”, adding that the hotel is fully booked for a period of test.
People take pictures of a polar bear inside an enclosure at a newly opened hotel in Harbin.
STR / AFP / Getty Images
Conservationists criticized the hotel.
“Polar bears belong to the Arctic, not in zoos or glass boxes in aquariums – and certainly not in hotels,” Jason Baker, senior vice president of the animal rights group PETA, told Reuters. “Polar bears are active for up to 18 hours a day in the wild, covering residential areas that can span thousands of kilometers, where they enjoy a real life.”
In 2016, a shopping mall in Guangzhou, southern China, attracted global condemnation after videos of a polar bear, Pizza, lying on its side in a glass-walled enclosure.
Harbin Polarland, founded in late 2005, calls itself the world’s first performing arts polar amusement park.