French fashion designer Thierry Gillier has apologized for saying that Chinese holidaymakers will not be welcome at a luxury hotel he plans to open in Paris.

Thierry Gillier, founder of label Zadig and Voltaire, told the magazine Women’s Wear Daily that his hotel “won’t be open to Chinese tourists”.

The statement caused outrage in China where his comments went viral on social networking sites.

Thierry Gillier has said his comments were taken out of context.

“My remarks were doubtless clumsy… I understand they might have hurt my friends from China, France or elsewhere, and I am deeply sorry for that,” he said in a statement on Thursday.

The statement added that Thierry Gillier wanted to underscore the exclusivity of the hotel and emphasize that it would not cater for the mass tourism market.

Thierry Gillier had urged the magazine to modify his quotation from “Chinese tourists” to “busloads of tourists”.

The Zadig hotel is due to open in 2014 on Paris’s chic Left Bank.