上海周边城市借世博东风吸引游客

当游客们涌入上海观世博时，上海周边城市也准备借此东风吸引更多的旅客。旅游内部人士透露，今年夏季，世博旅游热潮将会一直持续。

Drive northwest out of Shanghai, pass by the Taihu Lake, and you will come to the city of Wuxi in less than two hours, an ancient town renowned for its scenery, history and amenities. It's a popular travel destination during the public holidays, and even more so when this year's May Day Holiday coincides with the opening of the Shanghai World Expo.

"I'm going to Shanghai for the expo and just stopped here in Wuxi for a short visit."

During the three-day holiday, the city of Wuxi received nearly 3 million visitors and raked in about 500 million yuan, both of which have smashed records. Meanwhile, the occupancy rate of the city's star-rated hotels reached 96 percent, with ordinary hotels also booked up.

Hu Dashan, a local travel agency officer, says his agency has geared up to accommodate a huge increase in visitors.

"We developed some 30 different kinds of package tours to attract expo visitors. So far we have received thousands of pre-orders, and the number of our customers in the three-day holiday topped 10,000."

In the meantime, cities around Shanghai within a two-hour driving time, such as Hangzhou, Suzhou and Nanjing, have also seen an obvious increase in visitors. And it's believed that such expo travel mania will by no means fade after the holiday. In Chengdu of Sichuan Province, organized tours to Shanghai in the week following the Labor Day holiday are also selling well since the average price has dropped by 10 percent. A local agency worker says:

"Tours to Shanghai from May 4th to 7th are all sold out. Prospective travelers now can only book their tours on May 8th and 9th."

She adds that another round of expo travel fever is expected to arrive in June and July, after students all over the nation enter summer vacations.

"I'll take my grandson to the Shanghai Expo after his college entrance exam."

According to some travel agencies, the price for an expo tour is expected to dip in the first ten days of June, and travelers should be able to get half-price air tickets during that time.