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Shanghai, the biggest city in China, registered one million tourist arrivals from overseas, including 730,000 who stayed for more than one night, in the firstquarter of 2003, a year-on-year increase of 8 percent. Yao Mingbao, director of the Tourism Commission of the Shanghaimunicipal government, said the growth rate for the first two months of this year was 11.9 percent, involving 381,600 overseas tourists. The occupancy rate of hotels in the city was 68percent, 1.3 percentage points higher than the same period of last year, and the average tariff rose by 14 percent. Shanghai recorded a fairly good start in tourism given the war in Iraq and the outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), a flu-like epidemic,in parts of China, Yao said. Liu Houbing,vice-general manager of International Travel Service (Shanghai), the biggest travel service in the city, said his company received more than 1,000 overseas tourists each day, including those from Japan, France and Italy.