A delegation of senior tourism executives from Shanghai and tourism bureaux in the Yangtze River Delta visited Sydney last week for a post Beijing Olympics tourism promotion.

Headed by Mr Dao Shu Ming, Chairman and Ms Connie Cheng, Director, International Tourism Promotion Department, Shanghai Municipal Tourism Administration Commission, the emphasis of the visit coordinated by Helen Wong’s Tours was on the further development of the Australian market and World Expo 2010 Shanghai.

Shanghai received 6.66 million arrivals in 2007, up 14 per cent on 2006 figures.  Some 122,000 Australians visited Shanghai last year, one sixth of all Australians who visited China, said Mr Dao.

[Pictured: Dao Shu Ming and Connie Cheng value Australia as a significant market for Shanghai.]

We are well able to cater to an increase in visitor arrivals.  Shanghai’s state-of-the-art Pudong International Airport was further expanded in late 2007.  The facility now has a handling capacity of 60 million passengers a year, he said.

Even though the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games have yet to commence a post Olympics Action Plan initiated by the Shanghai Municipal Tourism Administrative Commission, the Jiangsu Provincial Tourism Bureau and the Zhejiang Provincial Tourism Bureau has started, said Ms Cheng.

Designed to promote greater awareness of the area’s tourism products and services and stimulate tourist arrivals the Action Plan will be active during 2008 �" 2009 in the lead up to the World Expo.

Scheduled from May 1 �" October 31, 2010, the first ever expo dedicated to urban living has the theme “Better City Better Life”.

Some 195 countries and organisations including Australia have already agreed to participate in the mega event set on a prime site along the Huangpu River.

[Pictured: The World Expo 2010 Shanghai is being built in the popular Pudong area.

A number of incentives are being offered to tour operators and wholesalers in Australia and New Zealand who develop and sell the region during this period, including:

** 100 international tour operators will be invited on FAM trips to acquaint them with the region’s tourism resources and developments.

** 1 million copies of tour brochures will be subsidised to encourage major tour wholesalers to sell new products of the region.

** World Expo 2010 Shanghai tickets worth about $150,000 will be provided to the top 10 overseas tour operators who send the most foreign visitors to the region.

** A World Expo New Tour Products Fund also worth about $150,000 is being established to support the R&D of new tour products in the region.

Additional details about incentives being provided to the travel trade to promote World Expo 2010 Shanghai can be obtained from the China National Tourist Office in Sydney.

Exclusive Report by Thomas E. King, TravelMole’s Travel and Lifestyle Editor