Kay Cooper has been to Milan, Italy, and Tokyo, and as a Los Angeles entertainment lawyer he often hears about the travel spots with buzz. This year, he says, everyone's talking about Shanghai.

"That's the place to go," says Cooper, who says it's the next trip on his list. "Everyone is telling me how cosmopolitan it is."

Once known as the "Paris of the Orient," Shanghai is leading China's tourism push with its highest-end bid for visitors yet. As the city touts everything from its superfast airport train to public-restroom maps, big foreign names also are selling Shanghai as a glamorous destination. Marriott just opened its flagship Shanghai JW Marriott, joining five-star hotels by Four Seasons, St. Regis and Ritz-Carlton. Bulgari set up its first boutique there a few months ago, Armani and Louis Vuitton are launching boutiques this spring, and chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten is to open his own restaurant by April.

Bringing the family? Universal Studios plans to break ground on a theme park there next year.

Increasingly, the city is seen as the next stop for well-traveled Americans who usually go to such spots as Prague, Czech Republic, and Paris, travel agents say. At the same time, corporate America's interest in China keeps growing, as its consumers buy more products and its industries expand. With the country opening its doors as a member of the World Trade Organization, it's promising to let fully foreign-owned hotels open there this year, and it's restarting talks that could allow more foreign airlines to fly there.

In the end, the world's most populous country is also expected to become its No. 1 travel destination: The Spain-based World Tourism Organization predicts China will surpass current leader France within six years. (Last year, China had 37 million foreign arrivals, compared with France's 70 million.)

But China's tourism push still has a long way to go. Last year's SARS outbreak nearly shut down U.S. tourism to the country from April to September. China's cities are more polluted than Westerners are used to, and Shanghai's car-buying boom means frequent traffic jams. The city is still very much under construction, with old areas making way for new buildings.

There are also smaller frustrations.

Foreigners can rent cars from the likes of Avis and Hertz but they can't legally drive them. (You have to hire a driver.)

All of that made for an odd trip for Rathnam Chaguturu.

The Princeton, N.J., biochemist took his family on a nine-day tour in October, and he was impressed by Shanghai's slick hotels and shopping. But he says pollution dampened the mood - "Some days we couldn't even see the sky" - and felt that the family's guides were sticking to government-approved routes.

"They told us more than once, 'The government wants you to see this,' " he says.