"During the six-month duration of the 2010 Shanghai World Expo, it is estimated that 70 million tourists from home and abroad will gather in Shanghai," said Huang Jianiing, Director of the Booking Center of the Shanghai World Expo Affairs Coordination Bureau. He added that if solely dependent on Shanghai's reception capacity, this would be an impossible task, and this resource must be shared with cities in the Yangtze River Delta.
"The status of Yangtze River Delta tourism destinations will be further highlighted," said Chen Minxian, Deputy Director of Ningbo Tourism Bureau. The World Expo is expected to attract about 3.5 million foreign tourists, and the inbound tourism market could become a new growth point for the Yangtze River Delta tourism industry in the future, bringing opportunities for the region to become a globally important tourism destination.
With 70 million tourists, 41 demonstration sites for Yangtze River Delta World Expo theme experience trips, and a unified coordinated management platform for tourism marketing... the 2010 Shanghai World Expo, which will start in more than 500 days, brings many opportunities for the development of the Yangtze River Delta tourism industry. At a recent forum in Shanghai titled "The World Expo and the Cooperation and Synergistic Development of Modern Service Industries in the Yangtze River Delta", experts attending the forum unanimously expressed that the preparation and holding of the World Expo will accelerate the construction of a world-class level tourism destination system in the Yangtze River Delta.
"Our response strategy is to divert part of the tourists' accommodation to surrounding cities," said Huang Jianiing. There are 390,000 beds in the surrounding cities near Shanghai that can be used for the World Expo. This will increase the hotel occupancy rate in surrounding cities by about 12% under normal circumstances, and by 30% on peak days. "During the World Expo, the hotel industry in the Yangtze River Delta region alone will see a good round of business," said Huang Yaocheng, Senior Advisor of the Domestic Exhibitions Department of the Shanghai World Expo Bureau.
In September this year, the State Council issued the "Guiding Opinions on Further Promoting the Reform, Opening-up, and Economic and Social Development of the Yangtze River Delta Region", which requires the construction of a world-class level tourism destination system in the Yangtze River Delta. "The preparation and holding of the World Expo will drive the Yangtze River Delta tourism to move towards this goal at an accelerated pace," said Qian Zhi, Director of the Information Office of the Shanghai Municipal Government Development Research Center. The goal of launching the "Yangtze River Delta World Expo Theme Experience Journey" is to build a first-class tourism destination system in the Yangtze River Delta.
According to relevant predictions by the National Bureau of Statistics, during the World Expo, 36.6% of visitors from other provinces plan to make side trips in surrounding areas. Among them, nearly nine out of ten visitors prefer the Jiangsu-Zhejiang region.
Qian Zhi introduced that the Yangtze River Delta World Expo Theme Experience Journey is a special tourism product customized for the 2010 Shanghai World Expo visitors in the Yangtze River Delta region. It combines the elements and themes of various places in the Yangtze River Delta around the theme of the World Expo, treating the "lifestyle" of each city as an intangible exhibition area. Through various forms such as demonstration points, demonstration zones, and demonstration lines, combined with other elements and market-oriented operations, it forms experiential and operable tourism routes.
Huang Jianiing introduced that according to surveys and statistics up to the end of April 2010, Shanghai has approximately 380,000 beds available for the World Expo. Among the 70 million tourists visiting the World Expo, about 42 million will need accommodation, averaging about 230,000 tourists per day, with each tourist staying in Shanghai for an average of 1.9 days. This means that during the World Expo, there will be a daily shortage of about 60,000 beds in Shanghai, and the bed shortage on extreme peak days will reach 400,000.
The World Expo theme experience journey connects the tourism destinations of the Yangtze River Delta. The 70 million World Expo tourists will be shared among the cities of the Yangtze River Delta.