With her photographs of Shaoxing opera performers hanging on the wall, 58-year-old Wu Guoxiang is looking forward to teaching overseas tourists about traditional Chinese culture when they arrive for next year's Shanghai Expo.

Star-rated hotels will help relieve some of Shanghai's accommodation pressures next year when millions of visitors are expected to flood the city for the 2010 Expo. [Asianewsphoto]

"I'll teach them the postures and I'm even thinking of renting costumes for them so they can take pictures," said Wu, one of dozens of families that have applied for the Shanghai government's home-stay program so tourists can get a richer impression of the city next year.

"The Shanghai Expo is a once-in-a-lifetime experience," said the housewife, who lives with her husband in a three-bedroom apartment in a middle-class community in northern Shanghai. "China has opened its doors to the world and so should my family."

The Shanghai World Expo, a six-month event that kicks off next May, is expected to attract 70 million visitors, equivalent to the population of Turkey.

About 4 million of them will come from overseas, thus putting the city's accommodation ability to the test. Shanghai currently offers around 540,000 beds at its hotels and hostels.

Home-stay encouraged

To help make space, the government is encouraging local residents to provide temporary lodging for its expected guests, especially at weekends and holidays. A pilot program is underway at Linfen Community in Zhabei district. Similar to the one rolled out during the Beijing Olympics, the program will mainly target overseas visiting groups rather than individual tourists.

The city is also negotiating with neighboring provinces like Jiangsu and Zhejiang, which boast a large pool of premium hotels located within a 60-to-90-minute drive from Shanghai.

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At Linfen, which has a population of some 20,000 families, residents have already begun to embrace the pilot program. According to community officials, inquiries have flooded in since application forms in the shape of a questionnaire were distributed to each household earlier this month.

Most of the applicants have more than one bedroom in their home and can provide bedding, air-con, TVs, telephones and independent bathrooms.

Many said they were more interested in the experience of making new friends than making money, while some just want to show how pleasant life is in Linfen. Potential communication problems topped the list of concerns, but the majority of families were confident these could be overcome with the right attitude.

"The enthusiasm of our residents is encouraging," said Zheng Wanping, the community's publicity official. "We will show our guests the best of what we have."