French, Italian, Russian, Spanish pavilions to be permanent landmarks

The France Pavilion on March 13, 2011. Four European pavilions will be kept as permanent landmarks in the Shanghai Expo Garden and will soon open to the public after refurbishment. [Guo Changyao/For China Daily]

European tourists will soon have a chance to experience and enjoy some of their rich art and cultural heritage in Shanghai.

The city authorities are giving the final touches to a plan that will see four European pavilions from the recently concluded Shanghai Expo having a permanent home in the Expo grounds and also serve as catalysts to promote art and culture.

According to the 12th Five-Year Plan (2011-2015) of the Shanghai tourism bureau, the Expo Garden is an ideal opportunity to attract more overseas travelers and tourists to Shanghai.

Tourism authorities have set a goal of netting total income in excess of 520 billion yuan (56.2 billion euros) by 2015, while the number of international tourists during the same period is expected to be around 9 million.

In 2010, boosted by the Expo, revenue of Shanghai's tourism industry totaled 305.3 billion yuan, of which $6.4 billion was from international tourists, while the number of international tourists reached 8.51 million, according to figures from the city's statistics bureau.

Under the plan, the French, Italian, Russian and Spanish pavilions will be retained as permanent landmarks in the Shanghai Expo Garden and will soon open their doors to the public, say city officials.

"Some exhibits and the interior decoration of these pavilions were removed after the Expo concluded. So it will take some time before the pavilions are ready again for public viewing," says Xu Wei, spokesperson for the Bureau of Shanghai World Expo Coordination.

Currently the Shanghai authorities are still considering the style and contents of the refurbished pavilions. All the pavilions, will, however, also remind the tourists of the Shanghai Expo success.

The four European pavilions, along with the Saudi Arabia Pavilion, were gifted to the city after the Expo and local authorities changed their original plan to demolish the foreign pavilions. Conventionally, most structures built for a World Expo are temporary and demolished after the event. Notable exceptions include the Eiffel Tower in Paris and the Space Needle in Seattle.

"We've finalized the agreement with the Bureau of Shanghai World Expo Coordination and passed on the planning responsibility

of the pavilion to them, although we'd like to offer our assistance," says Franck Serrano, the director of the France Pavilion.