REPORT - WTM2005: Visitors in 2004 increased an extraordinary 50% to 3.85mn (including some 658,000 Chinese visitors from Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan). And they spent 50% more as well. The largest overseas market is Japan (1.1mn visitors), then the US (353,000), Korea (299,000), and Germany (153,000). The UK comes further down the list with a little under 90,000 visits.

Already Shanghai has near 50,000 hotel rooms. Opening September this year was the extension to the Shangri-La Pudong.

Another 50 hotels are planned to open in Shanghai before 2010 - when the city is due host World Expo. Forecasts are that it could count 8mn visitors that year.

Other major infrastructure developments underway include several tunnels and bridges to link the newer Pudong area with the original Shanghai and its Bund, and work to double capacity by 2007 at the Pudong airport – now the city’s only international airport, although the original Hongqiao airport still handles domestic flights.