Hawzah News Agency-Three hotels with rooms costing about 150 yuan ($23) a night said that they had received police notices from as early as March telling them to turn away people from Pakistan, Syria, Iraq, Turkey and Afghanistan.

"I'm not clear of the reason. We just can't take them," one hotel worker said by telephone.

The notice appears only to apply to cheaper hotels at the bottom of the price scale.

All of the five countries have been beset by terrorist attacks in the past few years, or in the case of Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan have been in states of war.

The rule appeared to be a security measure coinciding with a development forum being held in Guangzhou this week, and also ahead of next week's G20 summit in Hangzhou, though the two cities are more than 1,000 km (620 miles) apart.

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