On the opening ceremony of "Experience Expo Online Tour."

People can become VIPs at some Expo pavilions by taking part in lucky draws on the Expo Online website every week starting early next month, Expo organisers said Saturday in the opening ceremony of "Experience Expo Online Tour."

Ten online visitors will be picked every week to enter the Canada and Finland pavilions on the Expo Site to enjoy privileges such as personal guides and other services in the pavilion VIP rooms, such as the VIP sauna in the Finland Pavilion. At yesterday's ceremony, Finland Pavilion submitted digital exhibit files and became an interactive-browsing pavilion from just a viewable pavilion,

About 30 pavilions, especially those most popular, have been invited to take part in the online lucky draw, said Wang Liping, deputy director of the Expo bureau's Communication and Promotion Department.

Visitors can register at www.expo.cn and leave their mobile phone numbers, which will then go into the draw.

The organiser is hoping that visitors will visit the real pavilions after visiting their online exhibitions, said Wang.

The website also opened a new version of a virtual Expo passport yesterday, in which visitors can get virtual stamps from about 300 pavilions after visiting the online exhibitions on the website. Netizens can create a unique Expo passport by choosing cover colours and background pictures. A seal special for Expo online also kicked off at the ceremony. Visitors will get the seal's stamp directly after landing on the website.

More than 50 million people both locally and abroad have visited the website so far.

The online Expo website opened on November 12 last year and enables users to view more than 300 pavilions from different angles, said deputy director general of the Bureau of Shanghai World Expo Coordination Zhu Yonglei.

All the pavilions and the entire Expo site can be seen in daytime and nighttime views. The pavilions at night are covered in colourful lights.

The website will continue to be available after the 2010 event ends. The organiser aims to make the website an "Expo that never ends."