Ni-Hao, I'm blogging from the USA Pavilion at the 2010 World Expo in Shanghai, China and this is an absolutely phenomenal development. 

The Chinese and the participating countries have spent over $58 billion to stage this mega-event.  It is, without doubt, the finest thing I've ever seen in terms of expos and world fairs.  I attended the World's Fair in 1939 at the age of seven.  I don't remember much about it, but it was a big deal in my life at the time.

It's wonderful to see China investing so much money in travel and tourism and it is becoming one of the world's most compelling destinations.  We were the only hotel company to participate in the USA Pavilion and I'm excited and honored that our name is here where millions of Chinese will be able to see the Marriott name and think about us as they travel the world.

In fact, we think that China will host 2.1 billion domestic and international tourists this year and within the next 10 years, China will be the world's largest single source of international tourism and the number one travel destination in the world.  We hope to get a lot of Chinese visitors to our hotels in the United States.  We want our government to understand that when we sell a room in the U.S. to a person from China, that's an export. 

It's not really understood very well that way so we have to do everything we can to help the Chinese get visas so they can come to the United States, spend their money and we can hire people to help resolve this terrible unemployment situation we have at home.

Marriott is continuing to grow and expand rapidly here in China.  In fact, China is our largest market outside of North America and we expect to have 60 hotels in this great country open by the end of this year.  On top of that, we expect to double our overall presence in China within the next five years by adding more hotels from brands like The Ritz-Carlton, Marriott Hotels, JW Marriott, Renaissance and Courtyard, and maybe, someday, even Fairfield Inn.

With more and more guests expected to visit this country in the coming years, it's so important that we have a variety of hotels in many different places throughout the country to meet the needs of so many different travelers.  That's why we decided to be sponsors here at the USA Pavilion.  We want to introduce ourselves to this great country and to the people that are going to be traveling the world in the years ahead.

China is a beautiful nation.  I hope you'll all have a chance to visit and experience everything it has to offer.

I'm Bill Marriott and thanks for helping me keep Marriott on the move.