100,000 Visitors Had Benefited from the Fast Track System

Signboard explaining the fast track system

The Shanghai Expo authority yesterday announced that more than 100,000 visitors had benefited from the fast track system to obtain reservation tickets for the designed popular pavilions. During the process, visitors should firstly obtain a copy of the City Name Card. After the card has been stamped with 16 chops from the Urban Best Practices Area (UBPA) Cases (please refer to my blog dated June 12, 2010 for details), the visitor can exchange the card for a reservation ticket to one of the three popular pavilions - the China, Saudi Arabia, or Italy Pavilion. The Italy Pavilion started joining the system this month. In order to be able to get accessed to the Italy National Pavilion, one should go to the Cases of Venice, Bologna and the country's environment protection department to collect 6 UBPA stamps. There are limited editions of the cards. Every day the system offers 500 chances to the admission to the Italy Pavilion, 180 to the Saudi Arabia Pavilion, and 2,000 to the China Pavilion. Visitors who are interested in the Germany, Spain, and Czech Republic Pavilions, may go to the three countries' cases to collect a certain number of stamps. A notice is posted at the Information Counter for the explanation of the procedures (See attached photo). Once you have got the reservation ticket for the China Pavilion, you don't need to follow the time slot. It is quite free. The staff will only check the date. He/ she will let you go in even though the booking time has passed.

UBPA at Puxi section of Expo 2010

The fast track system has made the UBPA become popular. The number of attendances to the UBPA increases to almost 10 folds than that before the initiation of the system. The system has also generated more visitors to Puxi. A university teacher was very lucky to be the 100,000th visitor receiving the City Name Card. The luck had brought him a gift package including reservation tickets to the China, Saudi Arabia, Italy, Germany, and Czech Republic Pavilions.

Besides the offers from the fast track system, one can get accessed to the designated pavilions if he or she holds a valid VIP card. Some foreigners said that they could skip the queue to enter their country's pavilions by showing their legal passports. For example, a visitor who is holding a valid French passport is allowed to get into the France Pavilion straight away. I, however, have no way to validate this information.