One of the top hotel chains in Asia has announced it will soon stop selling shark fin foods at its properties.

Hongkong and Shanghai Hotels Ltd, which owns the Peninsula Hotels group, said in an official statement that it had made the decision as a result of the company’s vision of sustainability and in recognition that the global shark population was seriously threatened. The company operates major hotels worldwide, including Peninsula properties in Shanghai, New York, Beijing and Hong Kong.

The hotel conglomerate will no longer serve shark fin products beginning 1 January, although it will continue to honour bookings for banquets with requests for shark fin foods through 21 November of next year.

The firm said in its statement that it hoped the decision would help to protect marine ecosystems around the world and that it would set a precedent for other hospitalities to remove shark fin products from their menus.

The news comes after the European Commission had called upon governments worldwide to ban shark finning, a process in which the valuable fins of sharks are sliced off of the animals and their bodies are thrown back into the sea to drown.

Shark fin soup is a delicacy in most of Asia, particularly China, but environmentalists and have long advocated a ban on shark finning.

In excess of 180 shark species are now considered threatened, which comes in stark contrast to 1996, when the figure was only 10 species.