The wife of the Chinese couple who stole a toilet seat from a hotel in Japan has resigned from her job after receiving heaps of pressure and criticism online.

Hotel staffers in Japan’s Nagoya found a toilet seat was missing on October 18, when the couple’s tour group was checking out of the hotel. The toilet seat was meant to be a spare for the room. The Chinese couple reportedly believed previous guests had left the toilet seat and thought no one wanted it.

They have since returned the electronic toilet seat and issued an apology. But the news has been wildly reported, and the increasing pressure promoted the wife to resign from her job as a manager at a commercial bank in Taizhou, east China’s Zhejiang province. 

The incident has also prompted the issuance of guidelines from the Ningbo Municipal Tourism Bureau with an aim to prevent similar incidents for recurring the future. The bureau has called for clarification of responsibility. At a city and county level, tourism management departments, as well as travel agencies, need to strengthen their leadership of civilized tourism.

The report went on to emphasize pre-travel briefing. Before exiting the country, tour groups should be briefed on the destination’s laws, customs, and an outline of unacceptable behavior. Moreover, tourist groups traveling overseas must appoint a supervisor to supervise civilized behavior. The responsibility is on the tourists to act with respect to the country’s rules and regulations, but the tour group’s leaders and travel agencies must help inform and manage.