A Chinese staff member from the Colombia Pavilion gets ready for a supporting role ahead of Miss Colombia's stage show. Gao Erqiang / China Daily

At the Miss Expo pageant, you don't have to be beautiful - but it helps, Matt Hodges reports.

The ongoing Miss Expo pageant, possibly the first of its kind at a World Expo, takes its ideals so seriously that even Miss Colombia found herself dumped out of the competition despite taking the opening round by storm.

If it was a regular beauty contest or a team event, Luisa Betancourt, who deals with VIP guests at the Colombia Pavilion and speaks fluent Mandarin, looked like a shoe in.

But this is the Expo, with weightier principles and issues at stake.

Betancourt failed to sway the judges on Sept 6 despite expertly working the crowd at the Porterhouse Irish Bar inside the Expo Garden, salsa dancing and going through at least four wardrobe changes, from traditional Andean regional dress to cowgirl to Medellin disco diva.

Her undoing was her decision to invite her pavilion colleagues onstage to plug their merchandise - thus flouting the Expo's ban on commercial activities - while skirting the contest's swimsuit-ban by having one Chinese girl pop up in a bikini to promote the Amazon region.

"Too commercial," was the verdict delivered by Aisling Smith, one of the organizers of the pageant, which purports to place personality, not beauty, on a pedestal.

"This is supposed to be about personality, and how you reflect your country. If it was one country against another, Colombia would have kicked ass, but that's not what it's about."

All credit should go to the staff at the Porterhouse Irish Bar inside the Expo Garden for putting together an impressive event that will likely be picked up at future Expos.

Organizers ended up with 52 contestants from over 40 national and regional pavilions after inviting each to send one or more representatives for a chance of winning a grab bag of prizes. The winner's spoils include free flights to London, a $1,000 diamond ring, an Australian opal and a two-day stay at a five-star hotel in Chengdu.

South Korea put forward two candidates, as did Kazakhstan, one for its former and current capital cities; African countries sent five; the USA Pavilion, never one to be outdone when it comes to flashy popular entertainment, has four or five representatives.

Miss Colombia Luisa Betancourt. Photos by Gao Erqiang / China Daily