To crack down on a snowballing number of fake tickets to the China Pavilion, the Expo bureau plans early last month to change the ticket to be like a credit card with anti-counterfeiting chips, Hong Hao, director of the Bureau of Shanghai World Expo Coordination said yesterday.

A total of 30,000 of these tickets, same as the current amount, will be issued at every entrance to the Expo site every day.

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 Hong said the counterfeiters have been able to make a perfect copy within five hours after they knew the color of the day.

He urged visitors not to buy the new tickets from scalpers. While they might look genuine, they won't be recognized by machines being set up in front of the pavilion.

More than 30 other pavilions - including the pavilions of Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan, as well as the Spain and SAIC-GM pavilions - have issued reservation tickets to visitors.

Hong said any pavilion may decide whether and how to issue reservation tickets and the bureau will assist them.