China Pavilion acts to thwart ticket scalpers

The China Pavilion will begin issuing new reservation tickets that are more like credit cards beginning tomorrow, an Expo official said on August 4, 2010.

The cards will incorporate anti-counterfeiting chips.

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Eight ticket machines, similar to those on city buses, were being adjusted at the pavilion's entrance, said Song Laixin, spokesperson of the Visitors Service Center.

Staff workers will stand beside each machine to help visitors use the tickets. Wooden boxes were installed near the machines to recycle the tickets.

Song reminded people not to bend the tickets because of the embedded chips.

The same number of reservation tickets, 30,000, will be issued at the Expo entrances every day, just like in the past.

The spokesman said the organizer had no plan to change the reservation tickets of other pavilions due to the huge cost.

The old China Pavilion reservation tickets were just slips of paper. The Expo bureau changed it to crack down on the number of fake tickets being sold to unsuspecting visitors.

The current paper tickets are collected by staffers as visitors enter the pavilion. The color of the tickets changes every day to thwart forgers, but the counterfeiters have been able to make a perfect copy within five hours once they learn the color of the day, the organizer has said.

Visitors are advised not to buy the new tickets from scalpers. While they might look genuine, they won't be recognized by the machines.