(By Erica Firpo) (ANSA) - Milan, November 19 - Milan Expo 2015 Commissioner Giuseppe Sala said Wednesday that more than six million tickets have already been sold for next year's world fair that begins in May. "We have already sold six and half million tickets around the world," Sala said.
    That brings the total closer to the target set by Premier Matteo Renzi of selling 10 million tickets for the six-month event before it kicks off on May 1, 2015.
    That also is good news for tourism throughout Italy, said Sala.
    "One million (tickets) have been bought by the Chinese and they will come to visit Expo, but clearly to also tour the country", Sala said.
    A record-breaking 53 countries have pavilions under construction or approved to be built for Expo 2015, with the Netherlands the latest to announce its Expo participation.
    It will join more than 140 entities taking part of the event under the theme Feed the planet, energy for life.
    The previous edition of the world's fair, held in Shanghai in 2010, had 42 single-nation pavilions.
    Sala said that "these are all the signs that the world is very attentive to (Milan's) Expo".
    That means Italy is preparing carefully to be scrutinized by the rest of the world with Expo organizers hoping to attract as many as 20 million visitors. For those who want to see a much more in-depth look at Italy's land, they can look forward to the special production "Experia.Travel in Italy at the Expo".
    This is a multi-platform, cross-media production by proponents of Italian Expo Pavilion 2015, RAI Expo, and Milan's Polytecnico University.
    Experia is a dynamic storytelling project to provide significant information about Italy, its history, its successes and critiques all via different media platforms as well as a series of events within Expo.
    Carlo Durante of RAI Expo, representing the national broadcaster, said that "the logic is to offer a point of view different to that of the every day, investigating the deeper relationships between man and the changes in the land".
    As part of the project, director Guido Morandini will direct and host 12 different 28-minute documentaries that will go on the TV airwaves during summer 2015.
    Morandini travels the Italian peninsula from north to south, investigating its infrastructure and with GPS that will be linked to Experia's website map. "The presence of public infrastructure is critical because it is what changes the country, the soul of Italy," Morandini said.
    "In my travels, I found a country which does not complain, but asks for participation in the great Expo event," he added. "Giving us this possibility through Experia, we are providing a public service, giving voice to the Milan Expo 2015 outside of its physical location".
    The project will also include social media interaction which will "tell of Italy's future", Pavilion Events Director Paolo Verri said. Alongside the Experia project is a major competition for university students.
    That event, "Become the protagonist of the Italian Expo 2015 Pavilion" will run from January 1 to April 30 with 60 winners chosen as co-stars during the Experia television preview.