Shanghai expo visitor numbers create record

Beijing :  Shanghai's $44 billion World Expo is on pace today to exceed the almost 205,000 visitors that the fair attracted on its opening yesterday.

More than 186,000 people had streamed into the expo's 5.3 square-kilometre park yesterday morning as of 11:30 am local time, almost 20,000 more than at the same time yesterday, according to organisers. Visitors endured queues as long as three hours for entry into some pavilions yesterday and temperatures as high as 82 degrees Fahrenheit to see the expo's more than 200 exhibits.

"We saw all types of people holding all types of umbrellas" to shade themselves from the sun, said Lin Ru, a 20-year-old college student from the northern city of Dalian who visited the expo yesterday with her friends.

China's richest city estimates 70 million people will visit the six-month long World Expo, more than 10 times the number who travelled to Beijing for the 2008 Olympics. To ensure smooth operations for the fair, Shanghai has deployed armed police to patrol the Expo park, restricted sales of knives and given local residents a five-day holiday through May 4, during which they've been asked to stay at home as much as possible.

Tickets

Tickets yesterday to enter the red China pavilion named "The Crown of the East" were gone before 9am local time. Temperatures in Shanghai are forecast to reach 29 degrees Celsius (84.2 Fahrenheit) today, according to the China Meteorological Administration.

Retired Shanghai resident Gen Changrong, 70, and his 68-year-old wife gave up on visiting the US and Spanish pavilions yesterday after seeing the long queues. They instead visited the Africa, Serbia and Lithuania pavilions because there were no lines, said Gen, who carried a bag filled with bread, apples and empty water bottles.

"We would have been totally exhausted if we tried to join the queue," he said. "It's too much for seniors."

Chinese President Hu Jintao officially opened the expo on April 30 at an evening ceremony marked by fireworks, a laser show and performances by Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli and martial-arts film star Jackie Chan. Visiting leaders including French President Nicolas Sarkozy and European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso watched the display from the expo site along the shores of the Huangpu river.

Police escorted motorcades for visiting officials across the city, forcing traffic to a halt along Shanghai's Yanan elevated highway and in the Lujiazui financial district. Hundreds of tourists took pictures and bought food from street vendors in front of the city's 1,535-feet tall Oriental Pear Tower, which staged song and dances shows on its plaza.

Shanghai's hotel occupancy level was 72 per cent yesterday, a 12 percentage point increase from April 30, state broadcaster China Central Television reported.