After Beijing, Shanghai is preparing to be under the world's spotlights. The city has just been nominated for Expo 2010 with its 70 million potential visitors. The city's hotel industry suffers from overcapacity that places a great deal of pressure on average daily rates. This evolving city continues to attract hoteliers. And bolstered by their con.dence in the Chinese magalopolis' future, these are crowding along the Bund and in the business district of Pudong.Far from the current difficulties, several elements are pleading for a joyous future in the long term. While many small houses will be demolished, World Expo 2010 will leave behind a legacy of a brand new congress center that will give Shanghai’s tourism industry one more note to play. “It is a new asset for the city,” remarks Christophe Lajus. Conventions of 2,000 to 5,000 attendees are scheduled three to four years in advance, the city should begin making a pro.t starting from 2013, the year a high-speed rail line connecting to Beijing will be inaugurated. But the best news was announced last month: Disneyland has officially confirmed its project to construct an amusement park in Pudong, offering proof –as if it were necessary – that Shanghai has definitively entered a new eraChina’s frenzy in the 21st century revives the international effervescence of the Roaring Twenties: Shanghai is regaining its former glory while resolutely projecting itself into the future. The two sides of this mutation are clearly visible to the naked eye on both banks of the Huangpu. To the West, Puxi reaffirms the prestige of an elegant and cosmopolitan city, a world megalopolis where the trend is exposed in its fashionable restaurants, palaces and boutique hotels that are flourishing near the Bund, the historic artery along the river, and the French Concession, a historic neighborhood from...