Travelers with a long wait at the city's airports can now take a quick tour of Shanghai between flights.

Both individual passengers and tour groups can ask for the free tours, which are currently open only to passengers taking flights on China Eastern Airlines.

Travelers can set their own itinerary, with the most popular destinations including the city's maglev train, Yuyuan Gardens, the Bund and the Oriental Pearl TV Tower, according to Li Shiqi, with Shanghai Dongmei Aviation Tourism Co Ltd, which provides the service.

"Foreigners compose the majority of the tourists, although the service is also open to domestic passengers," Li said.

Most of the customers are from Japan, Canada and Britain. However, only passengers from qualified countries with a visa waiver allowing them in the city for one or two days can take the tours.

"As this isn't merely a bus tour, which doesn't allow people to get off the bus, as is in Singapore, bringing the tourists back to the airport in time is a challenge for us," Li said.

He said that they have to tackle problems ranging from tourists' getting lost in the downtown area, or being robbed, which can all prevent them from getting back to the airport in time.

"To date, we haven't come up cases that people take advantage of the chance to enter China illegally," Li said. "We do adopt special measures to prevent this."

The service began last year, but Li wouldn't say how many travelers have taken advantage of the opportunity to tour Shanghai to date.

(Shanghai Daily October 20, 2005)