Authorities encourage visitors to tour Expo sooner rather than later

• Source: Global Times
• [08:33 July 30 2010]
• Comments

Shanghai officials are worried the next three and final months of the World Expo 2010 in Shanghai could see unprecedented crowd levels as visitors rush to tour the event that is already half over.

"We've sold out 50 million tickets, and there are still some 20 million people who hold entry tickets, but haven't yet paid a visit to the park, which will put great pressures on visitor capacity at the Expo," said Yang Xiaodu, a standing committee member of the Shanghai People's Congress, on Wednesday.

As of last week, more than 30 million people had visited the Expo Park, averaging some 370,000 daily visitors.

The largest number of daily visitors handled by Expo organizers so far has been a crowd of some 557,000, a figure that was reached on July 17. The park welcomed over 500,000 daily visitors on seven other occasions since opening.

Yang said that while he was pleased that the Expo has attracted a large number of visitors, he hoped that more people could visit sooner rather than later to prevent crowds from becoming unmanageable during the final stretch of the six-month show.

Global Times