THE EXPO FILES | expo 67 versus Expo 2010 :: Dodgy Attendance Figures

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Now that the Shanghai Expo has closed its gates (with a piddling 73 million entries),* it’s time to ask: who’s ripping off whom?

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THE ENTRANCE FIGURES

After six months, 73,084,400 total visitors visited Expo 2010, breaking the previous record set by Expo 70, which had attracted around 64 million visitors. Organizers had expected 70 million visitors at the start of the expo. Approximately 94% of attendees were Chinese nationals.

Shortly after the expo concluded, news reports emerged detailing how state employees (including workers of state-owned companies) were ‘ordered to pile onto buses, trains and planes and head to Expo 2010 in Shanghai’ in order to fulfill the target of 70 million visitors. Employees of some state-owned companies were allegedly threatened with loss of their wages if they did not attend.

– Wikipedia, Expo 2010

PHOTO > Jackson Lowen for The New York Times

According to tourism experts, state employees and government bureaucrats from virtually every part of the nation were ordered to pile onto buses, trains and planes and head to the Expo 2010 in Shanghai.

– The New York Times | Shanghai Expo Sets Record With 73 Million Visitors

PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC OF CHINA:

* Population 2010 estimate: 1,338,612,968 (1st)

SOURCE > CIA World Factbook – China

PHOTO > Commissioned by the Federal Corporation for Expo 67 and published by the Banque Nationale de Paris; provided by D.C. Hillier via Expo 67 in Montreal: A Photo collection about Canada’s Centennial Celebration!, a designKULTUR must see

Expo 67 closed on Sunday afternoon, October 29, 1967. On the final day 221,554 visitors added to the more than 50 million (50,306,648) that attended Expo 67 at a time when Canada’s population was only 20 million, setting a per-capita record for World Exhibition attendance that still stands.

– Wikipedia, Expo 67