Neighboring cities cash in on Expo to boost tourism

BEIJING - Shanghai's neighbors are vying for Expo Shanghai 2010 visitors to drop into their territory in a bid to boost local tourism.

Some 700 million tourists are expected to visit the Expo between May 1 and October 31, authorities have estimated.

And 36.6 percent of them are predicted to visit Shanghai's neighboring provinces, generating direct profit of about 11 billion yuan ($1.6 billion) and indirect tourism income of 80 billion yuan, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.

"From past experience, many people who come from afar would want to visit neighboring areas while they travel all the way to Shanghai for the event," said Mao Zhengrong, a tourism industry analyst with Sinolink Securities.

Zhang Lingjie, deputy manager of the domestic department of China International Travel Service head office, said more than half the phone calls to their office were inquiries about tour packages to the Shanghai Expo, with many of them wanting to visit neighboring cities.

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The market looks so attractive that cities in the Yangtze River Delta, such as Ningbo and Suzhou, have long begun preparations to lure tourists, including rewarding tour operators and initiating promotion campaigns.

Ningbo of East China's Zhejiang province had kicked off promotions as early as 2008, calling on tourists to stop by the coastal city, a three-hour drive from Shanghai.

"This is an opportunity we cannot miss to promote ourselves," said Deng Changqing, deputy director of the management office of Dongqian Lake in Ningbo.

Some 20 billion yuan has been pumped into updating tourism facilities in the lake area since 2002 when Shanghai won the right to host the Expo, he said.

According to Deng, the lake authority also extended a usually five-day lake leisure tourism festival this year, so that it will stretch from May to October - "just about the same length as the Shanghai Expo".

Cities like Suzhou and Hangzhou also did similar promotions, and have already witnessed the effect during the three-day May Day holiday.

"We were denied permission to go on leave starting from May 1, as we will be busy both sending local tourists to the Shanghai Expo and receiving tourists from the Expo," said Wang Xuezhou, a tour guide from Ningbo Zhelun Overseas Travel Agency.