Chinese tourism bonanza sparks mobile payments boom
The rise and reach of China’s burgeoning tourism sector has caught the eye of merchants, who are now embracing Chinese mobile payments to boost both sales and traffic.
Chinese tourism bonanza sparks mobile payments boom
The finding is contained in a survey of 4,837 Chinese travellers and 547 overseas merchants conducted by Nielsen and Alipay, which found that 78% of UK merchants would recommend the payment service to their peers.
This comes as Chinese tourists’ embrace of mobile payments while abroad continues its inexorable rise in destinations such as Singapore, Australia and the US, with the proportion of payments made in this way rising to 3.4 out of 10 last year.
In tandem with this change some 70% of British merchants say they have branched out beyond payments to embrace additional services such as digital marketing, with 88% of the belief that such initiatives helped market their stores while 63% believed it to improve store management.
Other key findings of the report include the fact that no less than 92% of Chinese tourists travelling to Europe said they’d be open to more spending if local traders offered Chinese mobile payment solutions.
The amount of foreign currency held by travellers as cash continues to dwindle with mobile payments overtaking the medium for the first time with a 32% share of all transactons.