Shanghai is developing a plan to line up accommodations outside the city along with rooms in local private homes to solve a hotel shortage that could run up to 200,000 beds a night during the 2010 World Expo.

Some 70 million visitors are expected from May to October during the Expo year, and despite an aggressive hotel expansion program, there will be far from enough rooms for everyone, city officials acknowledged this week.

"Our government is considering the use of hotels in other Yangtze Delta cities to handle the surplus of visitors," said Huang Yaocheng, deputy director of the Bureau of Shanghai World Expo Coordination.

The extension of Shanghai's magnetic-levitation train line to the Expo site and on to Hangzhou in Zhejiang Province will make it feasible for visitors to stay outside the city, he said.

The city also plans to nearly triple the number of expressways linking Shanghai to neighboring provinces.

The city is seeking to provide additional accommodations through a bed-and-breakfast-type program that allows travelers to stay with families living near the Expo site.

(Shanghai Daily June 24, 2006)