Expo top travel destination

Since becoming an official holiday in the rescheduling of the national holiday calendar in 2007, the Dragon Boat festival has become a busy travel season.

Along with the ongoing Shanghai World Expo, this year's three-day break looks to draw more Chinese to travel, especially the more than 9 million students who finished their college entrance exams Tuesday.

Tang Yibo, director of the travel service department of Ctrip.com, one of China's leading travel service agencies, said this year's Dragon Boat holiday season was expected to see a substantial increase in the number of trips over last year, thanks to visitors to the Expo.

A survey by Ctrip.com showed Shanghai Expo to be the top travel destination for the holiday season among those surveyed.

Air tickets and hotels in Shanghai have been enjoying brisk sales as the holiday season begins.

Also, little or no discounts are being offered for air tickets from Beijing to Shanghai during the holiday and the prices of some economy hotel rooms in Shanghai have nearly doubled.

On Wednesday, visitors to the Expo will be greeted by a Dragon Boat festival stamp at some pavilions, according to the Expo organizer.

Chinese provincial pavilions, such as the Hunan and Shanxi pavilions, plan to hold activities such as demonstrations of how to make rice dumplings.

In the Expo park, celebration activities have already kicked off.

More than 100 amateur performers from Macao performed a musical composed of traditional Chinese folk music and dances at the Macao Pavilion on last Friday.

"We came and put on this show because of our passion for Chinese culture," said Du Cunzhong, chief musical conductor of the orchestra that played the music for the show.

He said folk shows were a part of the celebration of the Dragon Boat festival in Macao.

From June 11 to 16, 100 visitors to the Expo will have a taste of a Singapore specialty, the Nyonya rice dumpling, per day, which is specially made by cooks at the Singapore Pavilion for the festival.