Shanghai Daily news

Shanghai's tourism authority is working to improve its relations with Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces, especially for the 2010 World Expo.

The authority is looking at encouraging tourists to the Expo to stay in the provinces, relieving some of the pressure on Shanghai for accommodation.

More than 70 million visitors are expected for the Expo and the tourist authority's policy and law department will inspect accommodation in the two provinces, hoping to get some visitors to the Expo to stay in the hotels there, rather than build more new hotels in the city.

"We plan to promote comfortable hotels 100 to 200 kilometers or one to one and half hours away from the Expo site," said Zhu Jianguo, a deputy director with the authority.

Zhu said the cooperation will help prevent a waste of accommodation resources after the Expo.

The authority will also promote nine Expo tourist routes with the two provinces this year. The itineraries will include the Expo garden, the Expo construction site and the famous tourist venues in the two provinces, such as Suzhou, Hangzhou and Wuzhen.

"The tourist routes have been there for a long time but they have not been promoted so from this year we plan to make them better known, step by step," said Cheng Meihong, the director of the authority's international tourism promotion department.