Starwood Hotels & Resorts is the latest international hotel chain to ban the controversial shark fin soup across its entire portfolio of brands including Sheraton, Le Meridien, St. Regis and W Hotels.

Shark fin soup is viewed by many Asians as a rare delicacy and is traditionally served at wedding parties and business banquets in Asia.

The company started taking shark fin off menus in 2012 and has cut use by 79% within the past two years, Starwood said.

The ban will also extend to other threatened animal species such as whale and sea turtle which will also be stricken from the menus of their 1,200 hotels and 1,300 restaurants around the world.

In 2012, the Shangri-La also announced plans to stop serving shark fin across its list of properties worldwide.

The Hong Kong-based group said it would cease serving shark fin in all of its restaurants and phase out Bluefin tuna and Chilean sea bass at all restaurants as part of their sustainable seafood policy.

When finning sharks, fishermen catch them, slice of their fins and throw the sharks back into the water, where they can no longer swim. The practice kills as many as 100 million sharks a year,