2010/07/02, FOCAC website

On June 21, the number of visitors to African Joint Pavilion topped 5 million, just 1 month and 1 day after the number reached 1 million on May 19. Behind the visitor increase is the attentive care and careful discernibility of the Shanghai World Expo organizers who have dedicated their wholehearted efforts to serve both the visitors and 43 exhibitors in the pavilion.

 Free Guidance to Help Visitors

The reporter has learned that in the African Pavilion's designing stage, the possibility of having a huge visitor volume was taken into consideration for facilities. The pavilion has three entrances in the south, north and east to make sure that visitors taking various routes would have direct access without having to go roundabout. The corridors are designed broad and spacious to avoid congestion when the visitor volume is large. From the very beginning, the pavilion has adhered to the concept of "no queues for the visitors", which has made the African Pavilion a "must go" for visitors choosing various routes at the Expo.

Visitors can enjoy colorful experiences by seeing, hearing and feeling the various exotic exhibits of the 43 sub-pavilions; 5 authentic African performances each day, interactive reality shows, and two bustling African bazaars. In order to help visitors understand more and give effective guidance to the visitors and improve efficiency, the pavilion has offered free guidance service on 15 occasions a day since late May, which has been proved very popular among the visitors.

Caring Attention Offered to Deal with Heat

With the arrival of the hot weather, more visitors tend to spend more time inside the pavilion. In order to offer the best experience to the visitors, the pavilion has opened more entrances. The original logistic passages are made available to visitors to make their coming and going easier. In addition, it has also added more seats and cooling facilities. Kindhearted tips are pasted on telling the visitors to "take a short rest before continuing the wonderful tour".

The visitors can get information such as the daily performance schedule, national pavilion day celebrations, visitor volume of the day, management announcements through the public address system, which helps them to better understand the African Joint Pavilion.

Individualized Interactive Activities

In order to better understand the visitors' needs, the organizers have collected news reports, discussions and micro-blog information about the African Joint Pavilion, which are passed to the exhibitors promptly to offer interactive activities to visitors in combination with the special dates.

On the day when the number of visitors reached 1 million, the lucky visitor received a surprise gift prepared by the exhibitors and sponsors. Around the Eritrea Pavilion Day, the lucky visitors were invited by exhibitors to attend a party and on June 1, the International Children's Day, young children were invited to take part in the garden party and play games with African performing stars and received holiday gifts. Visitors are also invited to give a name to the Galapagos giant tortoise at the Seychelles Pavilion and selected visitors are given the valuable coco de mer.

It is learned that in order to effectively improve the daily operation of the pavilion, the organizers creatively established a "curator rotation system". 43 exhibiting countries take turns to head the African Joint Pavilion and take care of the daily operation and management as well as communicating with the organizers on behalf of the exhibitors.

 (Source: Shanghai World Expo Website)