Dull turnout at Expo

(Oita Godo Newspaper,May 8^th 2010, morning paper, Page 10)

Dull turnout at Expo

The china expo in shanghai has been opened for 8 days. It's a very big event, but there are confusion caused by people who wanted to go into the expo without a pre entry pass, and they were stopped by the police. Hence in order to escape the confusion, many people did not turn up for the expo. There is a risk that the people visiting the expo might not hit the number of 70 000 000 people.

In the first 3 days of the opening of the Expo, there is a total sales of 950 000 tickets, but the people who turn up was only 560 000 people which is 60% of the total sales. The authorities, attempted to avoid the confusion, restricted access to the expo, as many people received free tickets from the internet. Apart from that, the hot weather and crowd had an impact on the visitors, saying that it's a waste of money.

184 days ago, the china expo community aimed for 70 000 000 visitors, an average of 380 000 visitors a day is needed to reach the goal. However up to the 6^th day, the visitors per day adds up only to 150 000 people, half of what is needed.

Officials said that during September and November, there might be an increase of people, and that the goal will be reached.

On one hand, there are not enough foreigners, in order to reduce the numbers of visitors going in, there are no tickets selling at the expo main ground.

The pamphlet that is given to the foreigners is said to be only in Chinese, and it is very unfriendly towards foreigners, said a Japanese women. Apart from that, there are also some accidents caused by ill planning of the car park.     

 Comments

I felt that the expo is a great place where people from all over the world could come and share their knowledge. However it's quite sad that it is not really for an international audience as pointed out by the Japanese lady. I felt that if china is going to attract more international visitors, they should use English and make use of bilingual staff that can help people from all over the world. Being that English is the lingua franca now, it is important that they can speak the language.

However, with the large number of people that china has, I am sure that hitting the target of 70 000 000 people would not be a hard task.

Tay Zhong Jie Edwin

Singapore

Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University, APM 4