Expo tickets made their debut today and although they look merely like a piece of card slightly smaller than a credit card, they are packed with high-tech anti-forgery technology.
The Expo organizer unveiled the ticket and sold 18,000 to eight domestic governments and corporations.
The Expo ticket is 54 by 98 millimeters and comes in nine categories each with a different color. All feature a "Haibao," the mascot, and the Expo theme and logo. The type of ticket and the price are written in English and Chinese.
The organizer has designed a commemorative ticket especially for overseas Chinese and will issue special commemorative tickets for other groups and sponsors.
Visitors can use the tickets to book ahead for some pavilions and store luggage at the Expo site.
Visitors will be able to gain entry quickly to the pavilions, said Chen Zhuofu, deputy director of the Ticketing Center of the Bureau of Shanghai World Expo Coordination.
Every ticket uses nine anti-forgery technologies developed by the Shanghai Banknote Printing and Minting Plant and will have an electronic chip imbedded.
Fake tickets will be easy to spot, said Zhang Shucang, deputy director of the printing company.
The surface of the Expo ticket will feel quite different to ordinary printed paper and the colors on the edges of the tickets will change when the cards are turned, said Zhang.
The RMB bank note features 19 anti-forgery technologies, while the tickets for the Beijing Olympics used 20.
The Expo ticket is smaller, so it cannot involve as many technologies but the effect will be the same.
Chinese and foreign corporations and organizations that need at least 30 tickets can now begin buying from the four domestic ticket agents and nine outside the mainland. The agents have opened their hotlines, Websites and outlets around the world.
The standard ticket will cost 130 yuan (US$18.98), and a peak day ticket 170 yuan till June 30, the end of the first phase of ticket selling. Both are 30 yuan less than the prices to be charged during the Expo.
The public will be able to start buying tickets on July 1.
Zhang said most of the tickets will be printed in Shijiazhuang City, capital of Hebei Province.
The Shanghai Overseas Chinese Service Center, the Shanghai Urban Construction Group, the government of Taicang City in Jiangsu Province, and Jiashan County in Zhejiang Province, bought the first batch of tickets yesterday.
China Eastern, the global partner of the Expo, and Huahong Group, Shenergy Group and Yili Group, senior sponsors for the event, have also bought tickets.
New song marks 30-day countdown
Little Mermaid moving to Shanghai for 2010 World Expo
